Bowie's Reading List

Here it is, friends. This season's reading list. We'll start with number 75, and work our way to number 1. Join us, won't you?

In reverse chronological order:

1. The Age of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby (2008)

2. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2007)

3. The Coast of Utopia (trilogy) by Tom Stoppard (2007)

4. Teenage: The Creation of Youth 1875–1945 by Jon Savage (2007)

5. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (2002)

6. The Trial of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens (2001)

7. Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler (1997)

8. A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1890–1924 by Orlando Figes (1997)

9. The Insult by Rupert Thomson (1996)

10. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon (1995)

11. The Bird Artist by Howard Norman (1994)

12. Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir by Anatole Broyard (1993)

13. Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective by Arthur C. Danto (1992)

14. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia (1990)

15. David Bomberg by Richard Cork (1988)

16. Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom by Peter Guralnick (1986)

17. The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin (1986)

18. Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd (1985)

19. Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music by Gerri Hirshey (1984)

20. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter (1984)

21. Money by Martin Amis (1984)

22. White Noise by Don DeLillo (1984)

23. Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes (1984)

24. The Life and Times of Little Richard by Charles White (1984)

25. A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (1980)

26. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1980)

27. Interviews with Francis Bacon by David Sylvester (1980)

28. Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler (1980)

29. Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess (1980)

30. Raw, a “graphix magazine” (1980–1991)

31. Viz, magazine (1979–)

32. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels (1979)

33. Metropolitan Life by Fran Lebowitz (1978)

34. In Between the Sheets by Ian McEwan (1978)

35. Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews by ed Malcolm Cowley (1977)

36. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes (1976)

37. Tales of Beatnik Glory by Ed Saunders (1975)

38. Mystery Train by Greil Marcus (1975)

39. Selected Poems by Frank O’Hara (1974)

40. Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s by Otto Friedrich (1972)

41. In Bluebeard’s Castle: Some Notes Towards the Re-definition of Culture by George Steiner (1971)

42. Octobriana and the Russian Underground by Peter Sadecky (1971)

43. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll by Charlie Gillett(1970)

44. The Quest for Christa T by Christa Wolf (1968)

45. Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock by Nik Cohn (1968)

46. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)

47. Journey into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg (1967)

48. Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. (1966)

49. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1965)

50. City of Night by John Rechy (1965)

51. Herzog by Saul Bellow (1964)

52. Puckoon by Spike Milligan (1963)

53. The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford (1963)

54. The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea by Yukio Mishima(1963)

55. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (1963)

56. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (1962)

57. Inside the Whale and Other Essays by George Orwell (1962)

58. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (1961)

59. Private Eye, magazine (1961–)

60. On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious by Douglas Harding (1961)

61. Silence: Lectures and Writing by John Cage (1961)

62. Strange People by Frank Edwards (1961)

63. The Divided Self by R. D. Laing (1960)

64. All the Emperor’s Horses by David Kidd (1960)

65. Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse (1959)

66. The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (1958)

67. On the Road by Jack Kerouac (1957)

68. The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard (1957)

69. Room at the Top by John Braine (1957)

70. A Grave for a Dolphin by Alberto Denti di Pirajno (1956)

71. The Outsider by Colin Wilson (1956)

72. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

73. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (1949)

74. The Street by Ann Petry (1946)

75. Black Boy by Richard Wright (1945)