Bowie: Loving The Alien
by Christopher Sandford
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Book Summary Information
Author: Christopher SandfordEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-08-22
ISBN: 0306808544
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780306808548
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Bowie: Loving The Alien
Book Review: Informative and Eye-Opening Book
Summary: 5 Stars
I had never bothered to purchase biographies on my idols before, and the reason was simple: being true spawn of the MySpace generation, I naively thought that all the information you could possibly want was out on the web someplace, so buying books would be just a foolish waste of money. My opinion changed, however, when I discovered this book.
I was browsing Amazon for Bowie-related merch and found this. The online excerpt was what grabbed me--its narration of the turmoil Bowie expressed around the last 'Ziggy' concert very much shocked and interested me. Someone was selling a used copy for two dollars--an offer even an utter cheapskate such as myself couldn't resist--and I ordered it.
Being a rabid David Bowie fanatic, I relished the author's inclusion of fact after fascinating fact. It must have taken at least several years to compile the information. Eye-opening anecdotes about virtually every phase in Bowie's life, including often-neglected ones such as his youth and beginning stabs at releasing music, make this a highly informative read. Sandford goes into great detail on Bowie's cocaine-induced mental breakdown in the mid-seventies, which included behaviors as bizarre as repeatedly tracing swastikas on a fog-covered window, and repeatedly acting out the plot of "Rosemary's Baby."
I'd recommend this to just about anyone interested in learning about the man behind the phenomenal Bowie albums; however, the book tends to go back and forth between time periods, and the author generously applies the 'miscellaneous facts' element, which may bore readers who are more interested in a cohesive, story-like outline of Bowie's history.
Oh, yeah--there are several pages' worth of photographs included, several of which were taken when he was a boy, which readers might find interesting. All in all, a very well-constructed biography that deserves an honored place on any rabid Bowie fanatic's bookshelf.
Summary of Bowie: Loving The Alien
Based on interviews with family members, colleagues, lovers, and the previously silent William Burroughs, this unsparing yet evenhanded biography guides the reader through the many personas, crises, and musical metamorphoses of David Bowie?also known as Davy Jones, the Laughing Gnome, Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke, a drug-addled grandfather of punk, actor, art aficionado, political activist, one of rock's most resonant icons, and a totem of modern pop culture. Nowhere else is the man and musician so convincingly deconstructed and so compellingly humanized.
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