David Bowie Top 100 books

[drofgnal]

My wife knowing I was a big Bowie music fan showed me an instagram post about Bowie being a voracious reader. It had a link to his top 100 books from the NY public library. I've read a handful of these and may explore a few more on the list. It's an interesting collection of books.


https://www.nypl.org/blog/2016/01/11...-top-100-books

[Number9]

There's also a book written on the subject!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07QH...8355624&sr=8-1

And here:

https://www.kobo.com/se/sv/ebook/bow...9thKHKg&cPos=1

[Quoth]

How does the top 100 from a library work?
In fact it's a copy of Bowie's own list posted by Bowie himself on Facebook, so it's actually nothing to do with the NYPL. Using Facebook is poor judgement. The entirely of Zukerberg's sites are exploitive cess pits.

It might be brilliant or not, but generally the opinions of celebrities are worthless. See Stephen Fry's comments.
What a celebrity is good at, or famous but not good at*, is mostly irrelevant to some other field.

[* David Bowie seems to have deserved pop fame more than most and seems to have been decent to work with]

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Quoth

How does the top 100 from a library work?
In fact it's a copy of Bowie's own list posted by Bowie himself on Facebook, so it's actually nothing to do with the NYPL. Using Facebook is poor judgement.

A top 100 from a library lists the books from the posting/article and will often link directly to the book within the library so that patrons can request it. In this case, it was David Bowie. It's not NYPL's list, it's David Bowie's list with links to those books at the NYPL. People asked, so he took the time to post. No different from other reading lists from other well known persons. Sometimes, a book that is somewhat obscure catches your eye from these lists, so a book you might never have read gets read and maybe gets added to your favorites.

[DiapDealer]

I typically find the opinions of celebrities about everyday stuff to be just about as worth(full|less) as any anybody else's. *Shrug*

[issybird]

Lists are fun. I'll always look at a list. The best lists are a combination of the eclectic and the expected and that's just what we've got here. I rather assume it's not ranked. I see Kafka was the Rage in the fifth spot; I liked that a lot but it's not fifth on my all-time list. Not even close.

And to elaborate on lists being fun, it could be a lot of fun if people were to post their all-time best lists here. Not a top hundred, ack!, but perhaps a top ten or even twenty. Would anyone dare? In any case, it would be entertaining and illuminating to work up one's own list.

[drofgnal]

I'll start with my top 3:

1- A Gentleman in Moscow by Toles
2- War and Peace by Tolstoy
3- The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien

I'll add after I've thought about it. I won't go beyond 10.

[issybird]

I've given it some thought and ten is harder than a hundred. It takes a lot of distillation; also, I think you lose that eclectic aspect that's appealing in longer lists. There's a lot less chance of stumbling across a previously unknown gem in someone else's list; the fewer the books, the more predictable they become.

A lot of my all-time favorites are nonfiction, too; for starters, I think I'd need two lists!

[Quoth]

Many of my favourites change with time and many are for different reasons. Also I'd find it difficult to explain why I like some, which by any critical milestone are poor.

There are authors were I like nearly all their work. Some series I like all of. Some authors and series are patchy.

Then there are series or authors I started by liking and now hate.

Also a list I'd recommend would vary with person and might not be the same thing as books I like. Some people can't stand loads of genres. I only dislike a couple of genres.

[drofgnal]

Here's the top 10 (in no particular order)

1- A Gentleman in Moscow by Toles
2- War and Peace by Tolstoy
3- The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
4- The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
5- The Good Earth by Buck
6- The Nightingale by Hannah
7- All the Light we Cannot See (Doerr)
8- Pillars of the Earth by Follet
9- Watership Down by Adams
I made myself put one nonfiction book on the list and that is:
10- A New Guide to Science by Asimov

Issybird is right, distilling this down to 10 is hard. My main critieria was I liked them so much I was compelled to reread them, something I don't do much. That helped me whittle it down somewhat, but there are three on this list I haven't reread yet, but I want to. The other criteria was one nonfiction, something I don't read much of. Asimov was the obvious choice, it's a great compilation on the history and development of science.

Quoth is also right, my list would change over time. Ask me in a couple of years and my list might be different. I guess that is why I made the list mostly based on things I've reread or want to reread, that won't change much over time.

[DrNefario]

I'm a little disappointed they don't all begin with T, after your top 3, drofgnal.

Honestly, I don't know how I'd even go about it. I think I like some books maybe more than they deserve because of the time I read them and the mood I was in. Some things have probably aged badly. Some things I don't remember that well. And I'm not someone who goes around giving everything a star rating.

[Quoth]

The Good Earth is on my TBR "pile". In paper with some others she wrote.

Probably I was too young when I read Catcher in the Rye.

I've enjoyed a few on drofgnal's list.

I think re-reading is a good criterion.

In no order and not at all comprehensive:
Chronicles of Narnia. First box set I ever bought and among first books I ever bought.
Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit, but not really the Silmarillion. Not any of Christopher's editing.
Some of Ursula le Guin's books and series.
Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" series.
Many E. Nesbit.
The original three Foundation books by Asimov, but especially not any of the post 1970s.
Terry Brooks's "magic kingdom for sale" series.
Terry Pratchett's Discworld, but not all of the series. Witches (inc Tiffany), DEATH and Guards sub series as well as The Truth, Going Postal and Making Money. Not the Long <whatever> series, or Science of Discworld, Nation.


Series or authors which seemed to start good and I later found tedious (or horrible):

The Wheel of Time
Shanarra
Terry Goodkind
Stephen Donaldson (the Thomas Covenant stuff seemed to go off and then tedious. Daughter of Regals was good.)
Grr Martin.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I think I like some books maybe more than they deserve because of the time I read them and the mood I was in. Some things have probably aged badly. Some things I don't remember that well. And I'm not someone who goes around giving everything a star rating.

Yeah, all of this. But I've been thinking about it and I've decided that my criterion is the noise the books make inside my head, even after years or decades. This of course tends to skew it towards books I read long ago and I admit I do filter out books on the junkier side, especially books I read in adolescence (Gone with the Wind, Graustark, Prisoner of Zenda I'm looking at all of you). In the end, it's mostly the first books that popped into my head and that seems fair enough. Hit ten and stop. Or in the case of my nonfiction list, eleven. I'm not sure I can bear to eliminate one.

I'll get around to posting my lists later.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The Good Earth is on my TBR "pile". In paper with some others she wrote.

Probably I was too young when I read Catcher in the Rye.

I've enjoyed a few on drofgnal's list.

I think re-reading is a good criterion.

In no order and not at all comprehensive

And other favourite authors, but not comprehensive :

Anne Hepple, Mary Stewart, Mary Burchell, Zane Grey, C. J. Cherryh, Bob Shaw, James White, Alan Dean Foster (but not the Star Wars stuff), Helen McInnes, Len Deighton, Victor Canning, Mary Rinehart, Ṗ. G. Wodehouse, Andre Norton, Charlotte Brontë, jane Austen, Cordwainer Smith, Margery Allingham, George MacDonald, Elsie Jeanette Oxenham, Angela Brazil, L. T. Meade, Anne McCaffrey, John Wyndham, Alister Maclean, Ngaio Marsh, Hammond Innes, Nevil Shute, Mrs. Margaret Oliphant (Hester was the first I read), Joan Aiken, Clifford Simak, Poul Anderson, Peter S. Beagle, Alfred Bester, Rhys Bowen, Dorothy Cannell, Raymond Chandler, G. K. Chesterton, Manning Coles, Jeanne M. Dams, Raymond E. Feist, Larry Niven, Jasper Fford, Elizabeth Goudge, Anna Katharine Green, Dashiell Hammett, Veronica Heley, Charlie N. Holmberg, Naomi Novak, Stephen Lawhead, Jack l. Chalker, Harry Harrison, Ben Bova, EE "Doc" Smith, "Capt." W. E. Johns, Harry Kemelman, Erich Kästner, Diana Wynne Jones, T E Kinsey, Maurice Leblanc, A. E. W. Mason (detective), Noel Streatfeild (the publisher made some be "shoe books"), Berta Ruck (romances with twists), Roy j. Snell, Patricia Wentworth (Christie's Marple is a pale version of Miss Silver), Janny Wurts, Robert Silverberg, Madame d' Aulnoy, some Enid Blyton series, Jerome K. Jerome, Ray Bradbury, John Buchan, Erskine Childers …

And many more. Probably left out some more popular ones. I read the library dry between 10 and 15. Had to giveaway almost an entire library when moving house once. Still have about 3000 paper editions and over 8000 ebooks (most are PD).

I don't read Horror now for decades. I ditch books that are simply attempting erotic rather actual romance. I read Westerns, detective, mystery, romance, the spectrum of SF from attempted realistic to fantasy, all kinds of fantasy (except sexual), adventure, spy (but not Ian Fleming since a teen, I think Bond is junk), some historic fiction, fairy tales, folk tails, myth, legend and a tiny bit of history, poetry, play scripts and biography, especially for research. Mostly only read science & technology now for research.

[issybird]

Here's my nonfiction list in no particular order:

Act One by Moss Hart
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain
Montaillou by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie
Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Roads to Santiago by Cees Nooteboom
Diary and Autobiography of John Adams
The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
People of the Abyss by Jack London
Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi
The Seven-Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken