{"id":7778,"date":"2026-01-02T11:46:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T11:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/the-20-best-david-bowie-books-152664\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T11:46:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T11:46:50","slug":"the-20-best-david-bowie-books-152664","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/the-20-best-david-bowie-books-152664\/","title":{"rendered":"The 20 best David Bowie books"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As we approach the 10th anniversary of David Bowie’s death, the new February 2026 issue of Uncut \u2013 in shops now or available to order online by clicking here<\/a> \u2013 asks a clutch of Bowie experts what they think the great man would be up to now, if he were still with us. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As we approach the 10th anniversary of David Bowie\u2019s death, the new February 2026 issue of Uncut \u2013 in shops now or available to order online by clicking here<\/a> \u2013 asks a clutch of Bowie experts what they think the great man would be up to now, if he were still with us. <\/p>\n

Among those experts are Paul Morley and Alexander Larman, who have both just published fascinating new Bowie biographies (Far Above The World: The Time And Space Of David Bowie<\/a><\/em> and Lazarus: The Second Coming Of David Bowie<\/a><\/em> respectively). Which has prompted us to revisit Uncut\u2019s previous list of best Bowie books, as published in The Complete David Bowie<\/a>, January 2023\u2026 <\/p>\n

20 WHERE\u2019S BOWIE?
KEV GAHAN <\/strong>
Where did David Bowie go when he took leave of this world in January 2016? Mars? The Villa of Ormen? Was he uploaded to the internet as a drifting consciousness? Or did he retreat to some Bromley of the Bardo? You can spend hours looking for him in this oddly endearing spin on Where\u2019s Wally?.<\/p>\n

19 BLACKSTAR THEORY
LEAH KARDOS <\/strong>
Bowie evidently packed his farewell album with enough puzzles and mysteries to keep fans and critics busy for several decades of his vivid afterlife. Academic and musicologist Kardos does sterling work in exploring their possible meanings while staying grounded in the sublime music Bowie was creating as he took his final curtain.<\/p>\n

18 STARDUST, RAYGUNS & MOONAGE DAYDREAMS
MICHAEL ALLRED\/STEVE HORTON\/LAURA ALLRED <\/strong>
From the early days of The Hype, Bowie was enthralled by comic books, so it\u2019s only fitting that one of the best versions of his story is this superbly psychedelic graphic novelisation, with Mike Allred bringing his Sandman flair to Ziggy.<\/p>\n

17 DAVID BOWIE IS
VICTORIA BROACKES <\/strong>
Though it was conceived as a celebration of the man\u2019s ongoing artistic vitality, the David Bowie Is\u2026 exhibition at the V&A museum turned out to be one of his most moving epitaphs. The accompanying book, complete with contributions from Camille Paglia and Jon Savage, can\u2019t recreate the experience but is a worthy souvenir.<\/p>\n

16 WHY BOWIE MATTERS
WILL BROOKER <\/strong>
Since his death there have been a slew of academic studies of Bowie, but Brooker\u2019s is the best, drawing on his own \u201cimmersive research\u201d (he spent a year dressing, eating and posing as Bowie) and pondering the way fan communities now contest the afterlife.<\/p>\n

15 THE AGE OF BOWIE
PAUL MORLEY <\/strong>
Written in 10 weeks following Bowie\u2019s death in 2016, Morley\u2019s book makes a virtue of its haste, presenting a breathless, kaleidoscopic portrait of the man, but is grounded very much in the rapture of a young provincial teen whose life was warped forever by fleeting moments in 1972.<\/p>\n

14 BOWIE IN BERLIN
THOMAS JEROME SEABROOK <\/strong>
Fleeing the cocaine psychosis of LA in 1975, Bowie wound up in Sch\u00f6neberg, Berlin, with Iggy Pop \u2013 a period documented in Seabrook\u2019s book, which charts how the time and place fed into some of the bravest, most brilliant records of his career.<\/p>\n

13 BOWIE, BOLAN AND THE BROOKLYN BOY
TONY VISCONTI <\/strong>
Though it covers the whole of his rich and storied career in production, the most compelling pages in Visconti\u2019s autobiography are inevitably the ones where he joins Bowie, from 1968\u2019s \u201cIn The Heat Of The Morning\u201d through the Berlin years and beyond.<\/p>\n

12 FROM STATION TO STATION: TRAVELS WITH BOWIE 1973\u20131976
GEOFF MacCORMACK <\/strong>
Childhood friend turned backing singer, MacCormack joined Bowie on ocean liners and transcontinental train journeys, from Japan to New Mexico, and documents their journeys and Bowie\u2019s protracted crack-up in over 200 surreally candid photos.<\/p>\n

11 SPIDER FROM MARS
WOODY WOODMANSEY <\/strong>
Turning down the offer of a steady job in Hull in order to kip on the floor of Haddon Hall, apply eyeliner and wear velour and heels in the fledgling Spiders From Mars, Woody\u2019s drummer\u2019s-eye view of the rise and fall of Ziggy captures the madness and the bathos better than anyone.<\/p>\n

10 THE GOLDEN YEARS
ROGER GRIFFIN <\/strong>
Though it\u2019s inevitably not as rich as Kevin Cann\u2019s chronology, this day-by-day guide by the creator of the indispensable Bowie Golden Years website does an incredible job in detailing the speed of Bowie\u2019s trajectory through the 1970s.<\/p>\n

9 ZIGGYOLOGY
SIMON GODDARD <\/strong>
Though he\u2019s now embarked on his Bowie Odyssey, tracking the career year-by-year through the \u201970s, Goddard\u2019s novelistic take on Ziggy is an essential read, placing Bowie\u2019s cosmic rise firmly in the context of brown-and-orange Bromley, 1971.<\/p>\n

8 BACKSTAGE PASSES
ANGELA BOWIE <\/strong>
As irresistibly scandalous as it is factually dubious, Angie\u2019s memoir of her part in Bowie\u2019s triumph details the decadent demi-monde of early-\u201970s London and Bowie\u2019s transformation from tousle-haired troubadour to leper messiah.<\/p>\n

7 MOONAGE DAYDREAM
MICK ROCK AND DAVID BOWIE <\/strong>
Arguably the closest Bowie ever got to an autobiography, this collaboration with photographer Mick Rock lavishly documents the rise of Ziggy, but is most impressive for Bowie\u2019s own text, detailing shoe-shopping expeditions with Cyrinda Foxe and tea parties with Elton.<\/p>\n

6 THE PITT REPORT
KENNETH PITT <\/strong>
Though he cast Pitt aside for Tony DeFries in his early-\u201970s bid for the big time, Bowie stayed in touch with his first serious manager to the end. Pitt\u2019s memoir fondly documents his crucial time with his prot\u00e9g\u00e9, from their first meeting in 1966 to the final parting in 1970.<\/p>\n

5 STARMAN
PAUL TRYNKA <\/strong>
Though not updated since its publication in 2012, and lacking a real critical point of view, Trynka\u2019s book may still be the most reliable, detailed and well-documented single volume biography of the man and his music.<\/p>\n

4 STRANGE FASCINATION
DAVID BUCKLEY<\/strong>
Drawing upon his own PhD thesis on Bowie, written during the Tin Machine years, Buckley\u2019s biography was one of the first books to reckon seriously with the career, benefitting from input from the man himself and key associates such as Tony Visconti.<\/p>\n

3 REBEL REBEL\/ASHES TO ASHES
CHRIS O\u2019LEARY <\/strong>
Originally conceived in 2009 as a blog, a fantastic voyage through Bowie\u2019s career song by song in the style of Ian MacDonald\u2019s Beatles opus Revolution In The Head, O\u2019Leary\u2019s work is now available in two doorstop-size volumes, finding rich contexts for songs from \u201cLiza Jane\u201d (1964) to Blackstar and beyond.<\/p>\n

2 THE COMPLETE DAVID BOWIE
NICHOLAS PEGG <\/strong>
Originally published in 2000, and now in its seventh updated edition, Pegg\u2019s bible is an exhaustive A-Z gazetteer of Bowieopolis, covering the songs, the albums, the films, the collaborations and the rich and strange apocrypha of this singular career.<\/p>\n

1 ANY DAY NOW \u2013 DAVID BOWIE THE LONDON YEARS: 1947\u20131974
KEVIN CANN <\/strong>
As the world\u2019s pre-eminent Bowie archivist, Kevin Cann has played a guiding role in the continuing stream of exhibitions and reissues, but his masterpiece is this matchless, richly illustrated, day-by-day chronology of Bowie\u2019s journey from Brixton to the stars. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post The 20 best David Bowie books<\/a> appeared first on UNCUT<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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As we approach the 10th anniversary of David Bowie’s death, the new February 2026 issue of Uncut \u2013 in shops now or available to order online by clicking here \u2013…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2414,31,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-bowie","category-features","category-lists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}