David Bowie: A Life, by Dylan Jones

This is a really interesting collection of anecdotes about David Bowie, told to Dylan Jones through interviews that span decades. Arranged chronologically, they tell the story of David Bowie's life through the eyes, memories, and impressions of 182 people that he was close to throughout his career. These are interspersed with occasional stories from Dylan Jones himself about his own interactions with David Bowie.

What I liked about the book: This was a trip through pop culture history that was incredibly stimulating and fun. The book took me a long time to read, at least partly because I had to keep looking things up on Wikipedia, or watching related videos on YouTube. I had never heard of some of Bowie's early work (before "Space Oddity"), and I didn't realize how many albums he had created throughout his life. Many of the people interviewed are pop culture icons, and it was fascinating to read about their relationships with Bowie.

What I liked less: I found it difficult to maintain momentum reading this book. In addition to having to stop frequently to look things up on Wikipedia and YouTube, I found that it's not the kind of book that is easy to read straight through. Each of the people interviewed has a different voice, and it was jarring to read one after another for an extended period of time. Also, while the stories and anecdotes overlapped a bit, the story and focus of the narrative jumped around a lot as one person's section led to the next. Sometimes different people had completely opposite impressions of Bowie, which is interesting in itself, but also a little jarring because there was no effort on the author's part to set the record straight. Another frustration for me was that contributors were identified with their names and relationship to Bowie the first time they were included, but from then on they were only identified by name. That's not a problem with people like Peter Frampton or Deborah Harry, but it was hard to remember who most of these people were (neighbor, childhood friend, manager, etc.) It would have been good to include their relationship every time, or to include an alphabetical index of these people at the end for easy reference. Also, an index of each contributor and the pages on which they appear would have been a great help, so that the reader could easily put together all of the contributions from specific people if interested.

Overall, this was a fun and interesting book; anyone with a strong interest in David Bowie would enjoy it.

Dylan Jones. David Bowie: A Life. New York: Crown, 2017. 521 pages. ISBN 9780451497833.