Bowie: The Biography
Written by Wendy Leigh
3/5
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About this audiobook
Discover the man behind the myth in this new biography of one of the most pioneering and influential performers of our time—David Bowie.
David Bowie—the iconic superstar of rock, fashion, art, design, and the quintessential sexual liberator—is a living legend. However, for the past five decades, he has managed to retain his Hollywood star mystique. Now, New York Times bestselling author Wendy Leigh reveals the real man behind the mythology. Through scores of interviews with Bowie’s lovers (both male and female), his girlfriends, business associates, groupies, and band members, Leigh, who grew up just a mile from where Bowie was born and went to school, has written an intimate biography of rock’s greatest enigma.
In an unexpurgated exploration of Bowie’s kaleidoscopic personal life, she reveals his star-crossed inheritance—his mother was once an acolyte of the British Fascist party; his father, the PR genius who masterminded his early career—in a dramatic contrast to those family members grappling with mental illness, fears that would haunt Bowie for most of his life.
Above all, there is Bowie’s hard-won rise to fame and fortune, his astounding creativity, his courage as a performer, and his shape-shifting style, coupled with a ruthless ambition that caused him to submit to the casting couch on his way to the top. In the process, Leigh tells of Bowie’s strong bond with John Lennon, his love/hate relationship with Mick Jagger, his male sexual partners, and his women, as disparate as Elizabeth Taylor, Susan Sarandon, Tina Turner, Marianne Faithful, Nina Simone, and most notable, his marriage to Iman, which has lasted for the past quarter of a century.
This biography is a once-in-a-lifetime look at the iconic superstar who changed the world.
Wendy Leigh
Wendy Leigh is the New York Times bestselling author of sixteen books, including Bowie, Prince Charming: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story, and The Secret Letters of Marilyn Monroe & Jacqueline Kennedy, and the coauthor of Life with My Sister Madonna, Jeannie Out of the Bottle, and Shirley Jones.
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Reviews for Bowie
32 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Episodic and not always linear, this book strives to pull in a wide range of interviewees to get as many perspectives and as much scandal as possible. Not to be denied: Bowie was used, used and even sated both himself and a wide range of partners. Plus he’s an entertainer. So there’s that. He is my hero.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I almost gave up on this a couple of times. I should have. It was not a biography. It was a list of Bowie's sexual partners. You want to read the book? Okay:
1 - Bowie was gay
2 - Bowie was bisexual
3 - Bowie was well-hung
4 - Bowie was amazing in bed
5 - Bowie was just okay in bed
6 - Bowie had lots of straight sex
7 - Bowie had lots of gay sex
8 - Bowie had lots of sex
9 - Bowie did drugs
10 - Bowie did some other stuff, too
11 - Oh yeah, and he made some albums and movies
There. You've read the book.
Seriously. When I read a biography, I'm looking for insight into the person. How their life influenced their creativity. What sparked certain songs. Where they were emotionally or mentally or spiritually when they created this album.
You get none of that here. Just a boring, rote recitation of name after name after name. Any situation described ultimately is only included so the author can indicate if Bowie fucked the others in the situation, or the others lusted after Bowie, or whatever.
What a steaming pile of shit this was. Don't read. - Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I knew it was a supremely stupid book as soon as I got it home:the photo on the front has been colored so that Bowie's left eye is brown and his right eye is blue. Bowie does not have two differently colored irises.
Library copy1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Glosses over his career in favor of listing his sexual partners. Not recommended.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I’ve never been so bored and unenlightened by a biography in my life. At almost 130 pages in and 4 albums produced, all I know is that Bowie will screw anyone who comes within arm’s length. Anytime, anyhow, anywhere. But nothing about the man as musician, composer or songwriter. Ziggy Stardust has been created and stormed the world, but we get 3 sentences about why and what Bowie thought about it then or now. It’s insane. Did the writer ever even talk to Bowie? Seems not. Choppy timeline and poor delivery of key events; some are completely ignored or given a single sentence. Oh and I think Bowie got the worst tattoo ever. I’m so disappointed, this book is going straight in the bin.