What to read to understand Bowie

Three books that explore the life, literary tastes and larkiness of the enigmatic starman

David Bowie: A Life by Dylan Jones (2017)

Dylan Jones’s oral history of David Bowie may not be the most incisive biography of the star, but it is the most comprehensive. He interviewed around 200 of the artist’s friends and collaborators, and the resulting patchwork offers a kaleidoscopic insight into Bowie’s peerless evolution, beginning with his faltering attempts to make himself a star in the 60s and concluding with the mighty Blackstar and his untimely death.

Bowie’s Books: The Hundred Literary Heroes Who Changed His Life by John O’Connell (2019)

As Bowie was the most literate of rock stars, it is regrettable that he never wrote a memoir. He did, however, provide a list of his hundred favourite “books” in 2013, ranging from The Waste Land and Madame Bovary to Viz and the Beano. John O’Connell explores his selections in this revelatory account, finding unexpected but persuasive connections, not only between Bowie’s songs and the books he read, but among the apparently disparate titles themselves.

David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the Sun Machine by Nicholas Royle (2023)

Bowie’s sometimes aloof stage persona coexisted with his love of silliness, and Nicholas Royle’s half-fascinating, half-barking study of the apparent connections between him and another Beckenham resident, Enid Blyton, may have appealed to him far more than any number of po-faced examinations of his art. Royle makes some interesting points about the joyfulness of Bowie’s music, but also indulges in wild speculation about Blyton’s sexuality and the penis size of a dog. I suspect Bowie would have laughed himself silly.

Alexander Larman’s Lazarus: The Second Coming of David Bowie, is published by New Modern (£25). Order a copy from The Observer Shop for £22.50. Delivery charges may apply

Photography by Lester Cohen/Getty Images