This might just be the best way to write a musician’s biography ever. The author organizes the book based on the albums David Bowie released throughout his lifetime, but besides an in-depth discussion of Bowie’s music he also touches on Bowie’s personal life, his inspirations, the tours, and artistic development as a whole. This technique produces snapshot pictures of Bowie’s life paired beside the music that resulted throughout his lifetime, and gives readers a logical way to enter into the life and music of an extraordinary man. I was also quite impressed with how well designed the layout of the book was as a whole. Many similar books have a hard time balancing text and imagery and in finding the right tone to engage the reader, but Hewitt keeps his language casual (he veers into gushing fan mode a few times, but I feel like just proves his motivation to write an engaging biography) while showing that he has done his research and the combination of text and images is as close to flawless as I’ve ever seen. It’s too bad that the book was published before Bowie’s final album was released, but I hope that Hewitt decides to go back and add a chapter to round things out once and for all! ( )

Bowie: Album by Album by Paolo Hewitt is the story of David Bowie as an artist as he first starts out as a young kid all the way up through manhood. It tells his life in songs, bands, movies, albums, friendships, and fads. It makes him the special person he was to so many of us. It goes beneath the make up to the person and lets us see the creative side, the struggle uphill to be a star, and the way he changed music forever. There are lots of photos included in this book. David Bowie was just a few years older than me and I have been a big fan all my life and had all his albums. I could relate to this book and love it because it took me behind the scenes. I would be the first one to be really critical of this if it wasn't done well but it was great! Nicely done! Will miss you Bowie!!! Thanks NetGalley for suggesting this book! ( )