Yesterday, the Internet* so kindly reminded us that rocker David Bowie turned 67 years old!  Ever wonder what books he would recommend for you to read?  Well, wonder no more... I give you Bowie’s booktrysts, 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 byOrlando 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 (public library) by Ed Saunders (1975)

38.    Mystery Train (public library) by Greil Marcus (1975)

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

40.    Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s (public library) 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  byNik 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-Fourby George Orwell (1949)

74.    The Street by Ann Petry (1946)

75.    Black Boy  by Richard Wright (1945)

*source: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/10/03/david-bowie-reading-list/

And as always, read at your own risk.  IFPL is merely offering a list put together by an outside source, a source that may have added material that may be inappropriate for all readers. Thanks!