You have until February 1st to finish Peter Ackroyds Hawksmoor if you want to be cool like David Bowie.
You have until February 1 to finish Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor if you want to be cool like David Bowie.

If it weren't for Facebook's stupid "On This Day" feature, I probably wouldn't remember anything at all.

Just yesterday, the nasty little notification reminded me that two years ago, I was blissfully immersed in the process of discovering the brilliance of David Bowie's Blackstar, and looking forward to its release, just a few days later, when the world would get the opportunity to shower Bowie with the holy-shit-he-really-did-it laurels that attend a truly major artist returning to form.

"Having just spent the last three hours listening to a stream of Bowie's new album, Blackstar, which comes out Friday, and before I go back for more," wrote I, "I just wanted to pop my head up out of the groundhog hole to say: BLACKSTAR IS A GREAT DAVID BOWIE RECORD. For real. Not just great because it's a David Bowie record, but a great David Bowie record. No, not Hunky Dory great, but it's also nowhere near that mode. Maybe it's a little more like Lodger great. Which is great. But comparisons to his past work really don't work. There's obviously late-middle Scott Walker in the mix, but Bowie could never be as obscurant as Walker. At seven songs and 42 minutes, Blackstar is not an endurance test; when it's over, you want more of it. That's because Bowie at his most out there will always have a little greasepaint around the collar. He's still in show business, even if the show consists of a lot more hiding than it used to. These are songs. At the tender age of 68, he sounds like he's bursting with them."

Sigh.

Less than a week later, Bowie was dead, and the mourning ritual went on for the whole rest of that year and beyond, and rightfully so, obviously.

(Also, in case you were wondering, Blackstar still completely rules.)

From the January 13-19, 2016 issue of The Stranger.
From the January 13-19, 2016 issue of The Stranger. Helen Green

Then, perhaps because I was in a Bowie mood (for a change) and the world is made out of magic, or more likely because the algorithm took the measure of my feelings and converted them into something someone might care to sell me, I chanced to discover the news that Bowie's son, the excellent filmmaker Duncan Jones, had inaugurated a book club in his late father's honor.

The day after Christmas, Jones tweeted that since his father was "a beast of a reader"—which ardent fans knew perfectly well—and had a particular affinity for the British psychogeographic history writings of Peter Ackroyd, he felt inspired to go on "the same literary marathon" as a tribute to his dad.

It probably won't shock you to learn that many of Jones's 332,000 followers were similarly inspired, and pledged to join in, which prompted Jones to make it, as the internet insists on forcing everyone to constantly say, "a thing."

Nor will it blow your mind to discover that this has had a salutary effect on the sales of Hawksmoor, despite the fact that the title is technically out of print, and paperback copies are going for as much as $466 on Amazon. (The audiobook, narrated by the excellent British actor Derek Jacobi, is perfectly available on Audible, which is also Amazon, just in case you thought you were going to be able to run between those particular raindrops.)

Did I buy it? Reader, I did, because I am a sucker, and because, you know, if there's a club dedicated to extending the legacy of David Bowie, even in the tiniest way, I want to join it. I know audiobooks don't really count as reading, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for a physical copy out in the world. You might consider doing the same.