Bowie Book Club Podcast

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov, a multi-level marketing scheme to get you into an emigre's state of mind.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books hasreigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Nova Express (https://bookshop.org/a/105/9780802122087) by William Burroughs - maybe it's science fiction? Maybe it's a spell to thwart mind control ? Maybe it's just not meant to be read?

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Dancing in the Streets by Barbara Ehrenreich, a survey about how people have collectively let their hair down over the past few centuries.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith, which is about how awful it was to travel before you could use noise-canceling headphones to eliminate any possibility of getting into a conversation with someone about murder.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner, which turns out to be about much more than Iggy Pop's satin pants.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky, which suprisingly ISN'T about Iggy Pop!

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi, which might be the most Bowie of the Bowie books we've read so far, in some ways.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol a picaresque novel of a grifter being grifty in Old Russia.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Hollywood Babylon a cruel and carnal compilation of old Hollywood tragedies written by Kenneth Anger, who apparantly shares our disdain for thorough research!

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Roadside Picnic by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, a hard-boiled story of mysterious realms, stiff drinks and super-powered artifacts. Apologies for the jingling sounds in the background - we had a very active feline collaborator on this one.

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read a book mostly about conferences on the astral plane, Psychic Self-Defense by Dion Fortune.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Orlando by Virginia Woolf, a book that essentially proves that David Bowie and Tilda Swinton are one person.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read (sort of) A Grave for a Dolphin by Ally Teeth (or Alberto Denti, Duke of Pirajno, if you must), a story about a manic pixie dream fish and the marine biologist (at least that's what AI thinks) who loved her.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, an overheated occult pot-boiler that manages to keep the hot esoteric gobbletygook flying for over 400 pages! Spoiler alert: Greg wrote this description and it may (does) not reflect the views of the other half of this podcast.

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Nowhere to Run by Gerri Hirshey - interviews with foundational artists of soul music asthey deal with aging, and (in the case of Screaming Jay Hawkins) serve drinks out of a skull or something.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Private Eye, a half-serious, half-silly British political magazine that is the ultimate i IYKYK.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, a tale of human pyschology under duress that makes a fitting end to the Russian books that Bowie had on his list.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard, a quaint little preview of the non-stop psychological prodding we endure now. Subscribe! iTunes | RSS | Stitcher Follow us! (Not in a creepy way) Mastadon Facebook Instagram Web Presence Our Bookshop Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!) Stuff We Talked About Salon article on the book article on Bowie's brief spell as an ad man in The Drum our episode on A People's Tragedy What Are We Reading Greg: The Pickwick Papers (of course!) by Charles Dickens Rim of Morning by William Sloane Gone to the Wolves by John Wray Kristianne: The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr Julia by Sandra Newman Our Best of 2023! Greg: Fingersmith in a 3-way split with White Noise and 42nd Parallel Dreaming as Delerium by J. Allen Hobson The House with a Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride Kristianne: also Fingersmith! How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu Thistlefoot by Gennarose Nethercott East of Eden by Johnny Steinbeck Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson What Song Did We Choose? What's Up Next Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Beyond the Brillo Box by Arthur C. Danto - if you like art, philosophy and the philosophy of art, you might get through this a little easier than we did.

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Strange People by Frank Edwards, a rundown of all the freaks, geeks and mentalists you'll ever want to encounter.

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time weread Writers at Work: The First Series, a compendium of interviews with writers that proves to be as dazzling as a round of George Plimpton's Video Falconry.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Beano, a British comic that has been teaching the fundamentals of anarchy to the youth of the UK decades before Johnny Rotten gave his first snarl.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read we read The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos, a big sweeping tale of America at the turn of the 20th century, including getting chased by a farmer with a shotgun, which happened all the time back then.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for strawsabout Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H. Lawrence, which has *all* the bowels and loins anyone could ask for.

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Infants of the Spring by Wallace Thurman - if you're a fan of gin n' ginger ale or of extremely stylized dialog, you're going to love this one.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read * Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, a novel of deception, doublecross, and people being absolute fucksters to each other. Subscribe! iTunes | RSS | Stitcher Follow us! (Not in a creepy way) Mastadon Facebook Instagram Web Presence Our Bookshop Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!) Stuff We Talked About The Handmaiden - movie version of Fingersmith by cue ChatGPT Park Chan-Wook London Labor and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew What Are We Reading? Greg: Spring by Ali Smith Room to Dream by David Lynch and Kristine McKenna Kristianne: Ordinary Wonder Tales by Emily Urquhart The Ride of Her Life by Elizabeth Letts Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro What Song Did We Choose? What's Up Next Infants of the Spring by Wallace Thurman

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read White Noise Don DeLillo, a very funny, very timely book about death, among other concerns.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read a doorstop of a history of the Russian Revolution: Orlando Figes' "A People's Tragedy".

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Mr. Wilson's Cabinet O' Wonders by Lawrence Weschler, a short, sharp treatise on a weird, weird museum.

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read In Bluebeard's Castle by George Steiner - an eccentric polymath, kind of like a certain David Jones we all know. Plus, T.S. Eliot impersonations!

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Room at the Top by John Braine, about an angry young man in a dirty old town.

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read On the Road by everyone's high school boyfriend, Jack Kerouac. We also talk about the new Bowie documentary Moonage Daydream, which we just saw IN A MOVIE THEATRE *shudder*!

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read we read The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, a slow, stately book about a very hot island a long time ago.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard - a play where a lot happens just off stage and there's a lot of talking about thinking.

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read In Between the Sheets, a kind-of-sort-of creepy book of short stories by Ian Mcewan.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read a book of literary criticism/history about Gustave Flaubert that (suprise!) turns out to be a novel that's not really about a bird at all (or is it?) - Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Money by Martin Amis - the literary equivalent of watching someone fall down thousands of flights of stairs and wondering why you're laughing so hard.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Awopbopaloobop (or something like that) a intensely jaded look at the first couple decades of rock music from legendary writer Nik Cohn.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Homer Tarantino's gory classic of bromanticism - The Iliad Subscribe! iTunes | RSS | Stitcher Follow us! (Not in a creepy way) Twitter Facebook Instagram Web Presence Our Bookshop Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!) Stuff We Talked About We read different translations of this here gruesome volume - Kristianne had the Robert Fagles and Greg read the Carolyn Alexander Want to understand the Iliad? This is the only infographic you need The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker The War that Killed Achilles by Carolyn Alexander Homer's Daughter by Robert Graves A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes The Odyssey translated by Emily Wilson Our ridiculous episode about The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes Shakespeare's Second Best Bet The Myths and Legends Podcast Christa Wolf's book on Cassandra that we should've read! What Are We Reading? (That Isn't Related to the Iliad) Greg: Devil House by John Darnielle (also Wolf in White Van and Universal Harvester) What Song Did We Choose? What's Up Next Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock - Nik Cohn

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read a series of connected stories circling the post-beat, pre-hippie world of Lower Mahattan in Tales Of Beatnik Glory by Ed Saunders. Join us for a hour or two at the Total Assault Cantina!

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. We survived another year, and that means we get to dust off the ole Choosenator and see what new books it brings us. This time we had a little canine assistance - our trusty guide led us through the wilds of Seattle (ok, through quiet residential neighborhoods) and pointed us at the correct numbers for the books for 2022! Subscribe! iTunes | RSS | Stitcher Follow us! (Not in a creepy way) Twitter Facebook Instagram Web Presence Our Bookshop Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!) Our 2022 Books The Iliad - Homer Simpson Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock - Nik Cohn Money - Martin Amis Flaubert's Parrot - Julian Barnes In Between the Sheets - Ian McEwan Coast of Utopia - Tom Stoppard The Leopard - Giusseppe Di Lampedusa Room at the Top - John Braine On the Road - Jacky Kerouac In Bluebeard's Castle - George Steiner Mr. Wilson's Cabinet O' Wonders - Lawrence Weschler A People's Tragedy - Orlando Figes Our 2021 Favorites Kristianne: The Enchanted Tale for the Time Being The Anthropocene Review and The Book of Delights Piranesi Greg: A Little Devil in America Gormenghast Tadanori Yokoo Piranesi The Dakota Winters and The Perfume Burned His Eyes Other Stuff Kristanne listened to House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door while walking her dog. Greg couldn't remember that Sir Derek Jacobi read the audio version of Hawksmoor - here's our episode about that book Buy records and books from Hex Enduction Records and Books in Lake City, Seattle. Even if you're not in Seattle, they have a giant Discogs page - they're good folks with good stuff! Coming Up We'll start things off next month with a relatively new, very modern tome - The Iliad. See y'all then!

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Quest For Christa T by Christa Wolf, a melancholy elegy that really got on the wrong side of the East German censors, for some reason.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, one of our favorites on the list - a fairy tale that careens through the Moscow of the 1920's, and is otherwise impossible to describe accurately.

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read On Having No Head by Douglas Harding, a slender guidebook to quick and painless enlightenment.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie's favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we sat in a cafe, drinking free refill after free refill, perfected our looks of total ennui and read The Stranger by Albert Camus

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we took a little wander through Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art by James A. Hall and read about a lot of saints with swords (sometimes stuck in their heads) Subscribe! iTunes | RSS | Stitcher Follow us! (Not in a creepy way) Twitter Facebook Instagram Web Presence Our Bookshop Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!) Stuff We Talked About James Hall's obituary in the Guardian Article about the first English dictionaries Mountweazel! The random paintings we attempted to decipher. Our episode about David Bomberg. We didn't talk about it, but here's Nick Cave's handwritten dictionary h/t to Austin Kleon's excellent recent blog post on dictionaries What Are We Reading? Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake The Hard Crowd by Rachel Kushner Bleak House by Charlie Dickens (as always) Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox Born a Crime by Trevor Noah Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi What Song Did We Choose? What's Up Next Tadanori Yokoo by Tadanori Yokoo

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we attempted to cobble together a plan to read Hall's Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art by James A. Hall.

Welcome to another episode of the **Bowie Book Club**, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Interviews with Francis Bacon, a beautifully constructed cut and paste job from the noted art critic David Sylvester.

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Mystery Train, Griel Marcus' expansive summation of rock music as American culture. Apologies for the weird clicking noise that sounds like its coming from Greg's mandibles (he forgot to wax them) - we'll have the audio hiccups fixed for next time!

Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club* where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we chose our books for 2021, in the great outdoors (and in our typical shambolic fashion)