6/18/2026
David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God: A spiritual meditation on his music and creativity by Peter Ormerod published 2026. The title of this book is way too long. This is my review of the book.
I was puzzled by this book when it came up on Spotify. I don’t like the reader’s voice or accent. It appears to be some sort of long personal diatribe on what David Bowie means to Peter Ormerod the person who wrote the book.
I was not willing to listen to this book wasting valuable Spotify hours so I listened to the very beginning and then I got an AI summary.
Although the AI may be incorrect the book seems to divide David Bowie’s life and career into certain religious or spiritual phases which could be given names.
The Choirboy, the Buddhist, the Occultist, the Agnostic, and the Doubter.
I can see David Bowie being some of these things but certainly never the choirboy. But the choirboy may refer to that he actually was a choir boy when he was a child.
Ultimately since I’ve listened to all of David Bowie’s songs the feeling I get from him as that he dislikes organized religion of any type. He may at times believed in God he may at other times not believed in God.
The critics reviewed the book positively. But on the other hand if you are a literary critic you won’t gain very much for trashing David Bowie after he’s died. David Bowie was a trendsetter and his music is iconic. Furthermore trashing the author about his personal recollections and memories of David Bowie sounds mean spirited. My book reviews in this blog are not influenced by public taste, reputation, economic gain or anything else. I could trash this book if I wanted. But ultimately it’s not even worth spending the time to write a critical literary view.
The reaction from the general public has been underwhelming as no reviews seem to exist for this book from individual citizens other than one that I found on YouTube which is a Vlog. The book came out on January 15 2026 so it has been about six months.
I’ll just say “David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God: A spiritual meditation on his music and creativity” has much more to do with the author than it does with David Bowie. However if one is a serious David Bowie addict and simply cannot get enough after reading every one of his biographies this might be a book to add to your list.
Macy Makes Magic 