Sean Egan

Fans of music from the original punk rock era will enjoy this title. No gobbing allowed.

Libraries with pop music titles need to make room for this one, which will appeal to serious and general Fleetwood Mac admirers alike. Fans of Stevie Nicks only will also be delighted.

The repetitive structure of interviews might not make this a quick read; Bowie's penchant for wandering observations, and each journalist's varying level of pretension also render it tough to digest in one sitting. But this is a fascinating journey through the mind of a musician many people claim to "know" but who proves time and again that his own essence is often foreign to himself. An asset for Bowie fans.

Both of these titles are fine purchases for large public libraries and deep music collections; for an intriguing take on punk history, try John Robb's Punk Rock: An Oral History (2006), or, for Clash-specific history, consider Marcus Gray's Last Gang in Town: The Story and Myth of the Clash (1995).