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We Could Be
We Could Be: Bowie and his Heroes | Tom Hagler
4 posts | 2 read | 3 to read
*** With consultant editor Tony Visconti. David Bowie's story has never been told quite like this. Tracing the star's encounters with fellow icons throughout his life, We Could Be offers a new history of Bowie, collecting 300 short stories that together paint a portrait of humour, humility, compassion, tragedy and more besides. He embarrasses himself in front of Lennon and Warhol. He saves the life of Nina Simone. He is hated by Bob Dylan. He teaches Michael Jackson the moonwalk. Individually astonishing, together these stories - including details never before revealed - build a new picture of Bowie, one which shows his vulnerability, his sense of humour, his inner diva. Exhaustively researched from thousands of sources by BBC reporter and Bowie obsessive Tom Hagler - with the guidance and memories of Bowie's long-time producer Tony Visconti - We Could Be is fascinating, comic, compelling, and a history of Bowie unlike any that has come before.
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RamsFan1963
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Probably not the best book written about David Bowie's life, but it's still an amazing story. Bowie met just about everyone who was anyone, and had a major influence on not just music but also fashion, art and theater. Bowie come off as an amazing talent, but also a warm, funny, generous man, the ultimate chameleon who picked up different styles and ideas from others, and blended them all together to create his many musical personalities. 4 🌟

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Bookwomble
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Pickpick

Well, here I am 24 hours later, and I've devoted a full day to this book and Bowie's music, coming out the other side with zero regrets. I can't objectively rate it as it was more of a personal life experience than sitting with a book: David's been such an integral part of my life that reading this was a cross between nostalgic reminiscence and therapeutic catharsis. I can only rate it 5✴, but that's really not a very reliable indicator for you.

Bookwomble The format is relatively short anecdotes, arranged in a chronological sequence, which Hagler has collected from other books and assorted media, and which Visconti has obligingly fact-checked and corrected. Initially, it feels shallow and vapid, but it starts to cohere the more you read, like looking close-up at a mosaic and gradually stepping back to resolve a portrait made of individual tiles. 3y
Bookwomble David's flaws aren't glossed over, and his humanity shines through, despite the last chapter of celebrity fan anecdotes getting rather gushy, breathless and elegiac (obviously, mea culpa), but by this time the spectacle of his life and public persona was overawing for just about anybody who'd grown up in a world in which he existed. 3y
23 likes3 comments
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Bookwomble
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I try to know little about John Lennon's murderer, so found it chilling to learn his Plan B if he got free from the one assassination was to murder David. David was on Broadway in The Elephant Man, & the day after the murder there were three empty seats in the auditorium: those for John & Yoko, and that for the arrested murderer.
It was touching to read Yoko and Sean Lennon's accounts of the support David gave them in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Leftcoastzen Yikes! I had never heard/ read that part 3y
GingerAntics Oh my god I never knew that. That‘s terrifying. 3y
Bookwomble @Leftcoastzen @GingerAntics Me neither, and it was stomach-churning to read. 3y
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GingerAntics @Bookwomble it really is. It just pulls you up short. It‘s just mind blowing. 3y
Bookwomble @GingerAntics I knew he'd been "celebrity-friends" with John, but Sean says that in the aftermath of his father's murder, David was around a lot and became something of an uncle for him, which I think indicates a deeper, truer connection. 3y
GingerAntics @Bookwomble I didn‘t know that. That‘s sweet. 3y
15 likes6 comments
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Bookwomble
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I bought this intending to keep it for Christmas - Oops! 😏
The author has pulled together 300 anecdotes about Bowie's meetings with celebrities from before he was one himself through his own stellar rise to fame. I couldn't resist the temptation to read it now!
And, that cover photo! 🤩😍
#booksandbowie

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