I’d wanted to read a biography of David Bowie for years, but wasn’t sure which to try, as there are so many. I chose this one by Dylan Jones because it tried to get to the core of who David Bowie was, his character and legacy. Although it’s arranged chronologically, the contributors’ comments are not as straightforward and there are no images. If you want a simple biography or something visual, it’s not the book for you.

The book is an oral history, using interviews that the author has previously done (including with Bowie himself) and some new material for the the book. The advantage of this format is that we get many perspectives on Bowie’s life and career, from his friends, lovers, collaborators, rivals, even his landlady (whose book I’ve read), neighbours and archivists. The disadvantage is that some people do tend to waffle and repeat themselves, or they don’t make much sense at all, so they could’ve been edited more (the same complaint I had for Jones’ book about the New Romantics). The book is over 500 pages, with longer contributions not broken into paragraphs. Generally I thought it was a great read and you won’t find anything so detailed and soul-searching on David Bowie.

Although the book covers so much content, it still won’t please everyone. There is more focus on some projects than others. I thought it was odd that none of the contributors who talked about The Man Who Fell to Earth mentioned that it was based on a book. The decades are not examined equally, which makes sense, but I thought we were never going to escape from the 1970s. We didn’t reach 1980 until over halfway through.

This is a revised edition which includes an afterword about mental illness in the family, to shed light on comments earlier in the book.

In summary, perhaps not a book for ‘absolute beginners’, but if David Bowie is one of your ‘heroes’ and you’re not ‘under pressure’ to finish the book quickly, you’ll enjoy this account of his ‘golden years’ and the ‘low’ times, although ‘it ain’t easy’ to read.

Published by Windmill, 2018.