Bowie Book Club Podcast

By Greg Miller & Kristianne Huntsberger

Two friends have had a book club for a very very long time. It was mostly an excuse to drink and gossip. In January of 2016, they found renewed purpose in their sadness over the death of David Bowie. ... more

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FAQs about Bowie Book Club Podcast:

How many episodes does Bowie Book Club Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 126 episodes available.

Bowie Book Club Podcast episodes:

July 26, 2021Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, a careening comic novel of doomed romance, never ending parties, and rotating gossip columnists.
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Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!)
Stuff We Talked About
The PBS series of Brideshead Revisited
His first novel, Decline and Fall
The movie version: Bright Young Things
The Bowie Bookshelf
What Are We Reading?
Greg:
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James - as always.
Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kushner
Centilogal 2020 by Levi Fuller
Kristianne:
Devil in the White City
My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki
What Song Did We Choose?
What's Up Next
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Permalink
...more
0min
June 21, 2021English Journey by JB Priestly
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read English Journey by J.B. Priestley, a gripping tale of a grump making his way around England in the dour `30s.
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Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!)
Stuff We Talked About
This is the Folio Society edition of the book that we both read.
Down and Out In Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier by Priestly's arch-nemesis (maybe?) George Orwell.
A BBC4 presentation on Priestly's "Postscripts" - his radio addresses during WWII.
An English Journey, Reimagined, part 1 with Alan Moore and Ian Sinclair.
And we totally spaced on this, but the super nice @travelswbrindle interviewed us for an article about the Bowie list for Early Bird Books. Thanks Chelsea!
What Are We Reading?
Greg: Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins - still! And some of Ulysses and Ulysses Annotated for Bloomsday!
Kristianne: Red Island House by Andrea Lee and Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir
What Song Did We Choose?
What's Up Next
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
...more
42min
May 24, 2021Tadanori Yokoo
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read a book (though probably not the right book) about the incredibly prolific Japanese artist and graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo by Tadanori Yokoo.
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Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!)
Stuff We Talked About
Maybe this was the book we were supposed to read?
Article on Yokoo's album cover designs
Article on the mural he's working on with his daughter.
Tadanori Yokoo's website
Greg hearts Gary Panter who hearts Tadanori Yokoo.
Kristianne wasn't kidding about National Goth Day
And she was right about the name of the butoh movie - it was Cherry Blossoms)!
Photographer Mick Rock captured Bowie in kabuki mode
MOMA has a great selection of Yokoo's work on their website
What Are We Reading?
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Women and Other Monsters by Jess Zimmerman
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
What Song Did We Choose?
What's Up Next
English Journey by J.B. Priestley
...more
33min
April 26, 2021Hall's Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we took a little wander through
Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art by James A. Hall and read about a lot of saints with swords (sometimes stuck in their heads)
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Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!)
Stuff We Talked About
James Hall's obituary in the Guardian
Article about the first English dictionaries
Mountweazel!
The random paintings we attempted to decipher.
Our episode about David Bomberg.
We didn't talk about it, but here's Nick Cave's handwritten dictionary h/t to
Austin Kleon's excellent recent blog post on dictionaries
What Are We Reading?
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
The Hard Crowd by Rachel Kushner
Bleak House by Charlie Dickens (as always)
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi
What Song Did We Choose?
What's Up Next
Tadanori Yokoo by Tadanori Yokoo
...more
31min
April 05, 2021Mini Episode! How To Read a Dictionary
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we attemped to cobble together a plan to read Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art by James A. Hall
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Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!)
Stuff We Talked About
Ok, here's the plan for reading through this crazy dictionary:
Take a look at the 3 paintings below (selected in a completely scientific and statistically significant way) and make your guess as to the subject of the painting, using the dictionary as your guide.
Greg and Kristianne will take a random walk through the dictionary, using elements of Francis Bacon's paintings as a starting point.
If you need other stimuli, then we also mentioned:
Dictionary of the Khazars
The Greatest Video on the Internet, if you like Orson Welles, or even if you don't
What's Up Next
Join us here around about the 18th of April as we discuss our highly academic and rigorously researched findings!

Can you guess the subject and/or title of these paintings?
...more
11min
March 22, 2021Interviews with Francis Bacon by David Sylvester
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Interviews with Francis Bacon, a beautifully constructed cut and paste job from the noted art critic David Sylvester.
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Our Bookshop
Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!)
Stuff We Talked About
Kitty Hauser's This Is Bacon
the Start the Week podcast
Our episode on the Life and Times of Little Richard
Our episode on the Waste Land
Pushing Ahead of the Dame on "Sound and Vision"
What Song Did We Choose?
What Else Are We Reading?
Greg will be reading Bleak House and Gormenghast for the rest of eternity.
Kristianne is reading Girls Against God which is having some...strange...effects on her, as well as No One Is Talking About This by Twitter's one and only champion Patricia Lockwood and Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro.
What's Up Next
Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art by James A. Hall
...more
38min
February 22, 2021The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a jazzy tale of the very American art of self-invention.
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Our Bookshop
Visit our lists on bookshop.org and help support the podcast (and independent bookstores too!)
Stuff We Talked About
BBC article - "The World's Most Misunderstood Book"
Ole Mel Bragg's "In Our Time" podcast episode on Gatsby
Our episode on Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason
interview about the origins of 'Nick' - here's the novel at bookshop.org
an excerpt in the Paris Review from Wesley Morris' new introduction to Gatsby.
Greil Marcus on Gatsby
Jesymn Ward on Gatsby
Gatsby, Liberace and Bowie
Our episode on The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
What Else Did We Read This Month?
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Gormenghast Trilogy by Melvyn Peake
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
What Song Did We Choose?
What's Up Next
Interviews With Francis Bacon by David Sylvester
...more
44min
January 25, 2021Mystery Train by Greil Marcus
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Mystery Train, Griel Marcus' expansive summation of rock music as American culture.
Apologies for the weird clicking noise that sounds like its coming from Greg's mandibles (he forgot to wax them) - we'll have the audio hiccups fixed for next time!
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Stuff We Mentioned
Greil Marcus' books on bookshop.org
Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle
Magus Books in Seattle
Our episode on Sweet Soul Music
Our episode on Sound of the City
David Cantwell's New Yorker article on Greil Marcus
Rolling Stone article on Mystery Train
KEXP
Books going into the public domain in 2021
Great Gatsby episode on the In Our Time podcast
What Else We're Reading
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
Bleak House by Chuckie Dickens
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Girls Against God by Jenny Hval
What's Up Next
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
What Song Did We Chose?
Bonus! Our Mystery Train playlist

The infamous Mazatlan agenda found in Kristianne’s copy!
...more
38min
January 11, 2021Our Books for 2021!
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we chose our books for 2021, in the great outdoors, and in our typical shambolic fashion!
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Our 2021 Books
Interviews With Francis Bacon by David Sylvester
Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art by James A. Hall
Tadanori Yokoo by Tadanori Yokoo
English Journey by J.B. Priestley
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
The Stranger by Albert Camus
On Having No Head by Douglass Harding
The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Quest For Christa T by Christa Wolf
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1984
Tales Of Beatnik Glory by Ed Saunders
What's Up Next
We'll be talking about Mystery Train by Greil Marcus later this month
...more
20min
December 28, 2020Journey Into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg
Welcome to another episode of the Bowie Book Club, where wild speculation and grasping for straws about Bowie’s favorite books has reigned supreme since 2016. This time we read Journey Into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg, a memoir of one incredibly strong woman's survival in Stalin's Reign of Terror.
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Stuff we Mentioned
The much harder to find second installment of Ginzburg's memoir.
The recent NY Times article about this area of Siberia and how climate change is affecting it
so many articles about Bowie's trans-Siberian trip
here's the fancy way to travel by train across Siberian these days.
Our episode on the very real and not fake Communist comic book Octobriana
Pushing Ahead of the Dame on Wild is the Wind
Our Favorite 2020 Books
We both agreed that that The Street was our favorite Bowie Book of the year - check out our episode on it.
We also agreed that Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead was in our top list. Other than that (in no order):
Kristianne
Wolf Hall, Bring Up The Bodies and The Mirror and the Light
Girl, Woman, Other
Their Eyes Were Watching God
These Truths
Greg
Deacon King Kong
The Overstory
The Yellow House
Hamnet
Washington Black
The Essex Serpent - the author also wrote Melmoth, which we couldn't remember despite our best efforts.
What's Up Next
Mystery Train by Greil Marcus
What Song Did We Choose?
and maybe, just for the holiday season:
...more
49min

FAQs about Bowie Book Club Podcast:

How many episodes does Bowie Book Club Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 126 episodes available.

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