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cmcdanks's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
This book was gifted to me by a friend. I knew nothing about David Bowie before this book and I ended up knowing way too much about him. Would not read again. Wanted to know more about his music career and it was a very detailed book about his sex life.
samanthamurphy_redw01f's review against another edition
3.0
Certain biographies interest me and this one was quite good! Check out my spoiler-free book review on Reedsy Discovery:
https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/bowie-the-biography-by-wendy-leigh-2016-02-02/user-reviews/bowie-the-biography-by-wendy-leigh-2016-02-02-samantha-murphy
https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/bowie-the-biography-by-wendy-leigh-2016-02-02/user-reviews/bowie-the-biography-by-wendy-leigh-2016-02-02-samantha-murphy
danodog's review against another edition
2.0
This book leans far too heavily on Bowie's sexcapades and drugs vrs the music. The artistic process for the early albums is interesting but that unravels as only the year of the albums release is shared. Of note Bowie did see Elvis Presley with Mick Jagger as his companion and he slept with Bette Midler of all people and was fascinated with Nazi fashion which he used for his This White Duke persona.
nerdkitten's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
fast-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Suicide attempt, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, and Suicide
Moderate: Cancer, Medical content, Addiction, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Alcohol, Car accident, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, and Terminal illness
Minor: Genocide, Gun violence, Homophobia, Pregnancy, Body horror, Cursing, Grief, War, Antisemitism, Biphobia, Racism, and Murder
inesmartinsantos's review against another edition
3.0
Overall, I liked it. However, I think it had potential to be a good biography about the life of David Bowie and instead ended up showcasing the wild side of the rock star lifestyle: "sex, drugs and rock & roll" applies here, for sure. And while Bowie was obviously no exception to the rule, he built a legacy which has inspired so many other artists and that goes beyond that. But it remains a fairly interesting book if you wish to read more about this legendary man.
sammyhui's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
3.0
haramis's review against another edition
2.0
Gushing, but oh so awkward. I'm now slightly embarrassed this book caught my eye at the library, and wish I had not picked it up.
lizziekam's review against another edition
2.0
Salacious trash that I mostly enjoyed reading because I am a sucker for all things Bowie. It's like a poorly edited compendium of tabloid articles about David Bowie. But if you want to read about every person he ever banged (and hoo boy, there are a lot of them), this is the book for you.
easolinas's review against another edition
2.0
David Bowie's sexuality was an integral part of his musical career -- his gender-bending, elegantly androgynous appearance and his declarations of bisexuality.
It also seems to be the only part of his career that Wendy Leigh is actually interested in, because that is the unifying theme of the rather pretentiously-named "Bowie: The Biography." While most of Bowie's career is examined, Leigh merely skims over the parts of it that didn't revolve around him having sex, who he was having sex with, how they were having sex, and preferably as many details as possible (like drag queens banging on the door).
Technically Wendy Leigh gives a pretty decent account of Bowie's life, both on and off stage -- his early life with a feisty and unconventional mother, his early music career and struggles to make it big, his involvement in the cultural attitudes that swept England at the time, his relationships with other musicians, his two marriages and fatherhood, and how he settled down from a wild rock god to an immortal, eternally-cool one.
But she seems oddly preoccupied by his sex life, which she establishes early in the book when she talks about how he asked, in a most gentlemanly way, for a sexy young woman to accompany him for a quickie in the bathroom. From there, Leigh almost fixates on who/what/when/where/why/how Bowie had sex -- his bisexuality, his swinging lifestyle with his now-ex-wife Angela, the orgies held at their houses, his shocking pronouncements about his sexual identity, his various onstage personae... and of course, every single person he ever slept with, as far as I can tell.
In fact, she almost seems to lose interest when Bowie divorced Angie, and eventually settled into a life of monogamous contentment with Iman instead. While technically referring to this as another stage in his amorphous sexual life, Leigh seems to grow bored with Bowie after that -- the final chapter of the book covers a good fifteen years of his life, but skims by everything in it quickly, as if she were just desperate to finish now that the salacious stuff is past.
In other words, this might as well have been called "Bowie: The Sexual Biography." And as such, it's kind of tiresome -- like receiving a thin slice of meat smothered in cotton candy. You end up wanting more substance, but keep receiving nutritional fluff. While details of Bowie's sex life are part and parcel of any biography of the man's life, they're so prevalent and so excessive in this book that you end up wishing she would focus on any other part of his life.
It even seeps into how Leigh addresses other people in Bowie's life, such as her coverage of his ex-wife Angela, which is quite detailed but ultimately about her jealousy and all the kinky things she and Bowie did. But it's not only what she includes (I didn't need to repeatedly hear about hookups with random ladies in the bathroom) but what she leaves out; the detail wouldn't be as out of place if she had given the same treatment to his career. However, it often feels like the career is treated as window-dressing rather than the central show.
Leigh's writing is fairly decent, and she digs up some interesting factoids about David's career and how it went (such as how he was financially cheated by a crooked "manager," or how he responded to the 9/11 disaster where his wife and child were near the Towers), and it honestly left me wishing that she had done more in-depth reporting on what Bowie's life was like in its entirety.It's not as if there's a dearth of information on things he did other than sex, since others have easily managed it and will likely do so again.
In brief, "Bowie: The Biography" is a flufftastic experience for those who want a frisson of pop star salaciousness -- for those interested in the fuller details of Bowie's life, give it a pass.
It also seems to be the only part of his career that Wendy Leigh is actually interested in, because that is the unifying theme of the rather pretentiously-named "Bowie: The Biography." While most of Bowie's career is examined, Leigh merely skims over the parts of it that didn't revolve around him having sex, who he was having sex with, how they were having sex, and preferably as many details as possible (like drag queens banging on the door).
Technically Wendy Leigh gives a pretty decent account of Bowie's life, both on and off stage -- his early life with a feisty and unconventional mother, his early music career and struggles to make it big, his involvement in the cultural attitudes that swept England at the time, his relationships with other musicians, his two marriages and fatherhood, and how he settled down from a wild rock god to an immortal, eternally-cool one.
But she seems oddly preoccupied by his sex life, which she establishes early in the book when she talks about how he asked, in a most gentlemanly way, for a sexy young woman to accompany him for a quickie in the bathroom. From there, Leigh almost fixates on who/what/when/where/why/how Bowie had sex -- his bisexuality, his swinging lifestyle with his now-ex-wife Angela, the orgies held at their houses, his shocking pronouncements about his sexual identity, his various onstage personae... and of course, every single person he ever slept with, as far as I can tell.
In fact, she almost seems to lose interest when Bowie divorced Angie, and eventually settled into a life of monogamous contentment with Iman instead. While technically referring to this as another stage in his amorphous sexual life, Leigh seems to grow bored with Bowie after that -- the final chapter of the book covers a good fifteen years of his life, but skims by everything in it quickly, as if she were just desperate to finish now that the salacious stuff is past.
In other words, this might as well have been called "Bowie: The Sexual Biography." And as such, it's kind of tiresome -- like receiving a thin slice of meat smothered in cotton candy. You end up wanting more substance, but keep receiving nutritional fluff. While details of Bowie's sex life are part and parcel of any biography of the man's life, they're so prevalent and so excessive in this book that you end up wishing she would focus on any other part of his life.
It even seeps into how Leigh addresses other people in Bowie's life, such as her coverage of his ex-wife Angela, which is quite detailed but ultimately about her jealousy and all the kinky things she and Bowie did. But it's not only what she includes (I didn't need to repeatedly hear about hookups with random ladies in the bathroom) but what she leaves out; the detail wouldn't be as out of place if she had given the same treatment to his career. However, it often feels like the career is treated as window-dressing rather than the central show.
Leigh's writing is fairly decent, and she digs up some interesting factoids about David's career and how it went (such as how he was financially cheated by a crooked "manager," or how he responded to the 9/11 disaster where his wife and child were near the Towers), and it honestly left me wishing that she had done more in-depth reporting on what Bowie's life was like in its entirety.It's not as if there's a dearth of information on things he did other than sex, since others have easily managed it and will likely do so again.
In brief, "Bowie: The Biography" is a flufftastic experience for those who want a frisson of pop star salaciousness -- for those interested in the fuller details of Bowie's life, give it a pass.