David Currie is an award-nominated author well known in the field of David Bowie as the founder of Starzone, the ground-breaking Bowie fan magazine. This coffee-table is part photo-book, part art-book, and provides a celebration of the life and prestigious talents of one of the most extraordinary individuals of the Twentieth Century. Currie takes us through Bowie’s career, sharing his own concert photography from the 1980s as well as photos by close Bowie friend, George Underwood. The photos, many unseen before, sit alongside Currie’s text as he recounts stories of living through Bowie’s career and of meeting the man himself on many occasions. A bonus are the cartoon Bowie images, created especially by Bill Morrison, The Simpsons’ artist.
The way Currie tells the story is engaging and works well for newcomers and those who know the story inside out. The telling of the story from Currie’s own recollections adds a wonderful personal element to the story. All Bowie fans will love this high-quality hardback book. It is exactly for this sort of book that we have coffee tables! A true delight and one that will leave a huge smile of the faces of true Bowie fans.
The second Bowie book is by Peter Ormerod, who describes himself as a Bowie superfan and, having been raised in a clergy household, has a deep interest in religion, hence this publication, which focuses on an all too rarely discussed aspect of Bowie’s life. Whilst Bowie’s exploration of faith was explored through a range of songs and interviews, rightly, this aspect remained deeply personal and private to him, hence this being a topic most biographies barely scratch the surface of. However, whether we need a whole book on the subject may be a test for the reader’s own desire to explore faith, whether Bowie’s or more generally.
From Bowie’s first musical encounters as a choirboy, Ormerod traces Bowie’s spiritual journey and interests throughout his career. Early in Bowie’s careers this focused on Tibetan Buddhism, but later saw him explore the Kabbalah through the Station to Station album, his death-defying final album, Blackstar, and, perhaps more debatably, Ziggy Stardust‘s messiah complex. But more subtle references are also scattered throughout his career, which Ormerod pulls apart and tries to find meaning behind.
This biography is released to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Bowie’s passing, meaning interest in Bowie is again heightened. This might sound cynical, but an alternative perspective would be that these intervening years have given the author time to reflect and make sense of Bowie’s life, career and faith without the interruptions of an ongoing career with tours and albums to get in the way. Ormerod offers a wide-ranging biography which highlights Bowie’s interests in exploring different faiths, rather than necessarily following such faiths. Bowie was known as a voracious reader and as an artist who carefully blended together ideas and influences into his work. Thus, it is not surprising that, having read Aleister Crowley’s work, the influences are detectable in his mid-70’s work or that, knowing he was dying, he recorded the song and video for Lazarus. Perhaps the strongest example of faith impacting Bowie’s work was his falling to his knees to recite the Lord’s Prayer at the Freddie Mercury tribute show, which was live broadcast around the globe. Was it the gimmick of a rock star with a huge audience or an act of faith by a man terrified of his own mortality? We will never know.
Ormerod uses a wealth of quotes from Bowie to help illustrate his assertions of how Bowie’s search for “life, death and God” can be detected throughout his almost fifty-year career. Some of these carry weight, but some, whilst interesting, are quite hard to really invest in. Trying to spot the links between Frederick Nietzsche and Let’s Dance is, I’m afraid, beyond me and I’m sure many other readers. But whilst you have to give the author admiration for trying to find references to life, death and God on almost every page, some seem rather vague and open to multiple other interpretations.
Overall, this well-written book is a valid attempt to explore an overlooked aspect of Bowie’s work and character, but whether it needed a 200+ page book to do so is debatable. One for the completists or academics.
The Grand Illusion of David Bowie by David Currie is published by Legends Publishing and is now available.
David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God by Peter Ormerod is published by Bloomsbury on 15th January 2026.
