- Hardcover: 448 pages
- Publisher: Sphere (3 Mar 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1847442382
- ISBN-13: 978-1847442383
- Product Dimensions: 16.5 x 12.6 x 5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
195,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #21 in Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Music > Styles > Rock & Pop > Singers & Groups > David Bowie
Starman: David Bowie - The Definitive Biography
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I liked this book a lot. When a biographer chooses an artist of Bowie's standing and stature as their subject expectations will be high.
Let's be honest, prolific and successful musicians who have reached Bowie's age have volumes of biographies on the shelves. It must be increasingly difficult to inject anything new into the story particularly when a lot of the main players are no longer with us. Without input from the man himself any new book should rightly be judged on the quality of the writing and in the analysis of the career.
In my opinion Trynka has served his subject very well indeed. I have read most of the significant Bowie texts and there were still some anecdotal details within `Starman' I had previously been unfamiliar with. Trynka documents his research in some detail, chapter by chapter, so there is good indication here that he's done his work.
As a Bowie biography `Starman' is easily up there with the cream on the bookshelves. True, it does not contain the minuscule detail evident in the Pegg and Cann publications but they are in fact reference books not biographies and it is unfair to make comparison.
The reader's expectations of a biography are entirely different to that of a reference manual. One provides a flowing informative narrative (story!) whilst the other is an informative, accessible document to be perused whenever required for detail and verification.
As far as I'm concerned this is a book which I have no hesitation in recommending to the hard core Bowie fan as well as to the marginally interested. For those who care, Trynka's book on Iggy `Open up and bleed' is also worthy of your hard earned cash. Again, the research and quality of the writing readily drawing you in.
If, by some slight chance, you read this Mr. Trynka I for one would be very excited indeed were you to choose Lou Reed or Marc Bolan as your next subject. Both artists worthy of the respect and meticulousness you so clearly give your subjects.
Let's be honest, prolific and successful musicians who have reached Bowie's age have volumes of biographies on the shelves. It must be increasingly difficult to inject anything new into the story particularly when a lot of the main players are no longer with us. Without input from the man himself any new book should rightly be judged on the quality of the writing and in the analysis of the career.
In my opinion Trynka has served his subject very well indeed. I have read most of the significant Bowie texts and there were still some anecdotal details within `Starman' I had previously been unfamiliar with. Trynka documents his research in some detail, chapter by chapter, so there is good indication here that he's done his work.
As a Bowie biography `Starman' is easily up there with the cream on the bookshelves. True, it does not contain the minuscule detail evident in the Pegg and Cann publications but they are in fact reference books not biographies and it is unfair to make comparison.
The reader's expectations of a biography are entirely different to that of a reference manual. One provides a flowing informative narrative (story!) whilst the other is an informative, accessible document to be perused whenever required for detail and verification.
As far as I'm concerned this is a book which I have no hesitation in recommending to the hard core Bowie fan as well as to the marginally interested. For those who care, Trynka's book on Iggy `Open up and bleed' is also worthy of your hard earned cash. Again, the research and quality of the writing readily drawing you in.
If, by some slight chance, you read this Mr. Trynka I for one would be very excited indeed were you to choose Lou Reed or Marc Bolan as your next subject. Both artists worthy of the respect and meticulousness you so clearly give your subjects.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Have just finished reading Starman. What a totally fabulous book, superbly written. I felt that the whole flow was pitched correctly, it neither fawned to the man's obvious talent, nor derided his flaws as a human being (being a human being has its flaws for everybody, after all)
Cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Cannot recommend this book highly enough.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If there's one individual that epitomises the classic quote "Sex, Drugs & Rock `n' Roll", then look no further than David Bowie. `Starman' by Paul Trynka tells the story of David Jones, from his youth in war-torn London in the forties right up to his semi-retirement in the noughties.
Featuring hundreds of interviews with family, friends, lovers and Musicians, Trynka tells an absorbing story of one of the UK's true music legends.
From the notorious school accident that scratched his eyeball, through failed auditions with Decca, and Joe Meek (the latter declaring that his band weren't "original enough"), this set in motion a song-writing career that only Bowie knew would be as successful as it is.
He was unfazed by failure in those early days, even commenting to friends "when I'm famous, I'm not gonna speak to anybody". Even the failure of `Space Oddity', didn't stop him, but Peter Noone's recording of `Oh You Pretty Things' was the song that brought Bowie from demo to limo.
Bowie's management knew they had a star on their hands, telling RCA "you missed out on the 60s but you can own the 70s, because David Bowie is going to remake the decade".
Evident throughout the book, from various musicians is their unanimous agreement that Bowie got the best of out them in the studio, encouraging them to go that extra mile. From the other side of the glass, however various stories emerge about how badly he treated session musicians.
Apparently he's ring up musicians and asks them to come to the studio to record, but yet once they got there, he was cold to them. He also ignored friends when meeting them in the streets, both events happening while he was taking cocaine. Even at one concert, he demanded the drug before he went on stage stating "I'm not going out unless I get it" he insisted.
If Cocaine was the `Drugs', Lou Reed, Jimmy Page and Iggy Pop were the `Rock n Roll'. The `Sex' was his bi-sexuality, his open marriage with Angie Barnett and his many girlfriends including Ola Hudson (mother of Slash), who Slash would later insist that seeing Bowie in his home was "like watching an alien land in your back garden".
Bowie didn't please everyone throughout his career. We're told about him keeping Liz Taylor waiting for two hours, Aretha Franklin, accepting a Grammy saying "I'm so happy, I could kiss David Bowie", while fans at his gigs would turn up wearing masks and costumes, and waving posters of tombstones with his name on them, that freaked him out.
His recording techniques over the years showed his maturity. In the late 60s he'd arrive at the studio with a complete set of songs, whereas by `Station To Station' he was oozing confidence, and would arrive with only one song ready for recording.
His family life which we've known very little about is constantly touched on throughout the book from the death of his father to the suicide of his half-brother in law, and right up to his marriage to Iman, and the birth of his daughter in 2000.
For a man whos' one major regret was that his son Duncan had an irregular upbringing, he's making up for that now by watching his daughter grow up day-by-day in New York while recovering from a heart attack.
While his musical influences range from Echo & The Bunnymen, and Air to the Pixies, his styles have been replicated by Madonna and Lady Gaga. With it now over eight years since his last studio album, we do know he's now happy with his life at the moment, and whether some new music is imminent or not, his place in musical history is certainly assured. An absorbing read.
Featuring hundreds of interviews with family, friends, lovers and Musicians, Trynka tells an absorbing story of one of the UK's true music legends.
From the notorious school accident that scratched his eyeball, through failed auditions with Decca, and Joe Meek (the latter declaring that his band weren't "original enough"), this set in motion a song-writing career that only Bowie knew would be as successful as it is.
He was unfazed by failure in those early days, even commenting to friends "when I'm famous, I'm not gonna speak to anybody". Even the failure of `Space Oddity', didn't stop him, but Peter Noone's recording of `Oh You Pretty Things' was the song that brought Bowie from demo to limo.
Bowie's management knew they had a star on their hands, telling RCA "you missed out on the 60s but you can own the 70s, because David Bowie is going to remake the decade".
Evident throughout the book, from various musicians is their unanimous agreement that Bowie got the best of out them in the studio, encouraging them to go that extra mile. From the other side of the glass, however various stories emerge about how badly he treated session musicians.
Apparently he's ring up musicians and asks them to come to the studio to record, but yet once they got there, he was cold to them. He also ignored friends when meeting them in the streets, both events happening while he was taking cocaine. Even at one concert, he demanded the drug before he went on stage stating "I'm not going out unless I get it" he insisted.
If Cocaine was the `Drugs', Lou Reed, Jimmy Page and Iggy Pop were the `Rock n Roll'. The `Sex' was his bi-sexuality, his open marriage with Angie Barnett and his many girlfriends including Ola Hudson (mother of Slash), who Slash would later insist that seeing Bowie in his home was "like watching an alien land in your back garden".
Bowie didn't please everyone throughout his career. We're told about him keeping Liz Taylor waiting for two hours, Aretha Franklin, accepting a Grammy saying "I'm so happy, I could kiss David Bowie", while fans at his gigs would turn up wearing masks and costumes, and waving posters of tombstones with his name on them, that freaked him out.
His recording techniques over the years showed his maturity. In the late 60s he'd arrive at the studio with a complete set of songs, whereas by `Station To Station' he was oozing confidence, and would arrive with only one song ready for recording.
His family life which we've known very little about is constantly touched on throughout the book from the death of his father to the suicide of his half-brother in law, and right up to his marriage to Iman, and the birth of his daughter in 2000.
For a man whos' one major regret was that his son Duncan had an irregular upbringing, he's making up for that now by watching his daughter grow up day-by-day in New York while recovering from a heart attack.
While his musical influences range from Echo & The Bunnymen, and Air to the Pixies, his styles have been replicated by Madonna and Lady Gaga. With it now over eight years since his last studio album, we do know he's now happy with his life at the moment, and whether some new music is imminent or not, his place in musical history is certainly assured. An absorbing read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
David Bowie
Purchased as a present it was very eagerly received and we are told that the content is excellent. Highly recommended.
Published 16 days ago by PETER R
starman-david bowie
i had read all the write ups on this book so i was looking forward to reading it but unfortunately i was disappointed it was well researched but it just didnt keep my attention
Published 1 month ago by R. Reeves
Glaring omissions and rushed ending!!!
The book has not been proof read. Where is Kenny Everett and Cher? where is Klaus Nomi. Is the Baal EP on cd? The ending is rushed and feels as though Trynka has ran out of steam. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Littletrueblue(Scunthorpe)
Truly the definitive biography
I was a massive Bowie fan from Space Oddity onwards, and carried Ziggy Stardust around South London in my damp and excited teenage hand, like some Christian convert with their... Read more
Published 14 months ago by s.cowell
By a distance the best ever Bowie book
I thought I knew my Bowie but this is a velvet goldmine of new information. Trynka's scoops include:
DB was a founder member of the Small Faces - they threw him out... Read more
DB was a founder member of the Small Faces - they threw him out... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Mat Snow
Well Written Overview
It is true that there isn't much new material here but at least this biography has been well written in a professional manner and offers a pretty comprehensive and concise overview... Read more
Published 14 months ago by Scott Hart
oh dear!
Another year, another Bowie book. There is very little new material here, a basic rehash of the many Bowie books unleashed over the years. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Tony D
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