100 episodes
Bowie Book Club Podcast Greg Miller & Kristianne Huntsberger
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- Arts
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3.8 • 28 Ratings
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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. They decided to stop mucking around and actually get some reading done - from the list of books that he loved.
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Zanoni by Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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 Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, an overheated occult pot-boiler that manages to keep the hot esoteric gobbletygook flying for over 400 pages! Spoiler alert: Greg wrote this description and it may (does) not reflect the views of the other half of this podcast.
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Nowhere to Run by Gerri Hirshey
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 Nowhere to Run by Gerri Hirshey - interviews with foundational artists of soul music asthey deal with aging, and (in the case of Screaming Jay Hawkins) serve drinks out of a skull or something.
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Bowie Book Club Podcast - Private Eye
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 Private Eye, a half-serious, half-silly
British political magazine that is the ultimate i IYKYK. -
Bowie Book Club Podcast - Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
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 Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler, a tale
of human pyschology under duress that makes a fitting end to the Russian
books that Bowie had on his list. -
The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard
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 Hidden
Persuaders
by Vance Packard, a quaint little preview of the non-stop psychological prodding we endure now.
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Stuff We Talked About
Salon article on the book
article on Bowie's brief spell as an ad man in The Drum
our episode on A People's Tragedy
What Are We Reading
Greg:
The Pickwick Papers (of course!) by Charles Dickens
Rim of Morning by William Sloane
Gone to the Wolves by John Wray
Kristianne:
The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
Julia by Sandra Newman
Our Best of 2023!
Greg:
Fingersmith in a 3-way split with White Noise and 42nd Parallel
Dreaming as Delerium by J. Allen Hobson
The House with a Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
Kristianne:
also Fingersmith!
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
Thistlefoot by Gennarose Nethercott
East of Eden by Johnny Steinbeck
Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson
What Song Did We Choose?
What's Up Next
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler -
Beyond the Brillo Box by Arthur C. Danto
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 Beyond the Brillo Box by Arthur C. Danto - if you like art, philosophy and the philosophy of art, you might get through this a little easier than we did.
Customer Reviews
My favorite podcast
I’ve been listening for years, due to being a Bowie fanboy since college. After following the podcast, I’m a fanboy of Kristianne and Greg. I love Kristianne’s voice and laugh. And I love that Greg makes Kristianne laugh with his sense of humor. I hope Kristianne does audio books so I can hear her voice even more, and I hope they continue for many years with podcasts beyond Bowie’s 100 book list.
Love the Bowie Book club
I would love to hang out with these people. Their discussions are fun and smart.
Ramblings of people who nothing about literature
It’s a great idea - I love Bowie, and I love books - but I realized 10 minutes into the first episode I listened to, which was about the Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Confederacy of Dunces, that if you’re going to listen to a podcast about books, it should be one led by people who understand literature, and know how to properly evaluate a book. Not everybody is going to like the same books but these guys don’t really know what they’re talking about. They totally misunderstood this book, which is a classic. Admittedly, I stopped listening but one of the first things they should have talked about is the setting, because it is an intrinsic part of the novel. It takes place in New Orleans in 1960 and that setting is of the utmost importance. One of the things that makes it stand out and ulways mentioned when properly discussed is that the author has an incredible ear for dialect and for depicting the city. These guys obviously didn’t get the humor at all - they thought it was one- dimensional and compared it to that of a sitcom. Nothing could be further from the truth. Much of the humor comes from the absurdity of it all and the characters are not stereotypes, as they say. They are all extremely likeable in their ridiculousness (it was shocking to me that they only liked two of the characters when all of them are so funny and richly described.) The protagonist, Ignatious, is one of the great characters of literature and is the biggest buffoon of them all. He is unique and multilayered. (there’s even a statue of him in New Orleans!) It’s not a “deep” novel - it’s not exactly Faulkner or something- but that’s the type of book it is - it is a picaresque novel, like Joseph Andrew’s, and it IS satirical. It points out the folly with all these characters, including the protagonist. There is no deep message but it’s hilarious. If they had done a little bit of research, they could also have talked about the author, because the story of how the book came to be is pertinent. if they don’t get it, or like it, that’s one thing, but it’s not interesting to sit and listen to the discussion of a novel by somebody who could just be the person sitting next to you on the subway train or your neighbor. I thought they would have some interesting insights, but they can’t even get it right. So there’s no way I would listen their evaluation of the other 99 books that were on Bowie‘s list of favorites. however, if it’s your thing to listen to the ramblings of two friends who know nothing about literature, go for it.