Peter Ormerod

There's something I find incredibly artistic about this somehow. It's like a moving painting.

(No sound)

Thanks so much - I'm delighted you've enjoyed it. That's quite some company to be keeping too - I'm most honoured!

Thanks Amber!

He's such a lovely person to talk with - he has an insider's knowledge with an outsider's curiosity

Peter Ormerod on Bowie’s Search for Life, Death and God - Maggiore on Bowie In this interview, I spoke with Peter Ormerod, a journalist best known for his work with The Guardian and the author of David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God. The book sets out to trace a...

When he's not helping to run New York, @maggiore6.bsky.social runs a superb Bowie site, full of interviews and his own fascinating insights. He kindly invited me to discuss Dave, God, the Bowie/Jones dichotomy and loads more

maggioreonbowie.com/peter-ormero...

This sticker was used on the tour - it looks like that word is Isolar, spelt in a version of Bowie's own 'Isolaric Alphabeth' - and it doesn't half make me think of a similar design used 40 years later, again with its own alphabet(h)

This series is such a treat and it's only just got going so sign up now.

(Numerology - which Bowie wrote as 'numberology' - was quite a thing for him at the time and seems to have been part of his prayer ritual, along with tarot and Dion Fortune's book Psychic Self-Defence)

You're very welcome - hope you enjoy it!

That's all very kind and lovely to hear; thanks Seán

We were created to eat it. I've always been obsessed with it and am made mostly of it. Only discovered steel cut oats relatively recently though - they take commitment but they're next-level stuff

Quite a nice thing to see in the Amazon charts. Feels a bit weird to be ahead of Paul McCartney and the Dalai Lama but there you go

Thanks, everyone

Ha! The more the merrier

Ah, thanks - hope you enjoy it!

David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God by Peter Ormerod review – the making of a modern saint An exhilarating account of Bowie’s spirituality and the quasi-religious nature of his work, from Space Oddity to Blackstar

It's an honour to have my book reviewed by the great Simon Critchley in today's @theguardian.com

And as for the review itself, it's beyond anything I could have dreamt of

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

I mean, blimey

Life on Mars? Bowie was questing far deeper Major Tom’s journey from lost spaceman to junkie to alien idol was never about sci-fi cheap thrills

Really nice and satisfyingly chunky review of my book in the London Standard

'What Ormerod provides here is a welcome addition to the heaving Bowie library'

www.standard.co.uk/culture/book...

Uncle Floyd→Slip Away Uncle Floyd. Slip Away. Slip Away (Jonathan Ross, 2002). Slip Away (Live By Request, 2002). Slip Away (live, 2002). Slip Away (live, 2003). Slip Away (live, with the Polyphonic Spree, 2004). Deep i…

RIP "Uncle Floyd" Vivino, who was UHF television at its most gloriously strange. Inspiration for one of Bowie's best songs of his later years. bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2014/03/27/u...

And that's a lovely comment to read - thanks

I've sadly had to postpone some events this week but I'm really looking forward to getting out and speaking with people about the book in the weeks and months ahead. Thanks to everyone who's given support or encouragement in any way - it means a lot and makes a difference

Follow Bowie's 'wild journey' of spirituality in Courier journalist's book David Bowie’s extraordinary spiritual adventures are the subject of a “monumental” new book written by a Courier journalist.

And being a local newspaper journalist at heart, it's been a joy to appear in the Banbury Guardian, the Derbyshire Times and of course the Leamington Spa Courier (it's taken me 26 years but at last I've done something vaguely worthy of its pages)

www.warwickshireworld.com/arts-and-cul...

Chris Bianchi - English Touring Theatre

I've also listened to the audiobook for the first time, and I couldn't be happier with our choice of reader, Chris Bianchi. There are so many generic voices out there, but Chris is something different, and reads with such thoughtfulness and soul. More about him here:

ett.org.uk/artists/chri...

Book Review: David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God by Peter Ormerod An exploration of the spiritual quest behind one of popular music’s most enigmatic figures.

Some more nice reviews have been popping up - I'm especially pleased with this one from young people's publication Voice, which is a proper force for good

www.voicemag.uk/review/16077...

YouTube video by Andy Mort | The Gentle Rebel The Thread Beneath Bowie’s Many Faces (with Peter Ormerod)

Closer to home - very close to home, in fact - there's been this interview with the wonderful Leamingtonian @andymort.com for his Gentle Rebel podcast

www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7js...

The Wonder of Life: A Guest Post by Peter Ormerod - B&N Reads Inside Bowie’s quest for meaning. This book takes a deep look at the icon’s complex journey towards spiritual and artistic enlightenment throughout his music career. Read on for an exclusive essay fro...

I've written a piece about the book for Barnes & Noble (the colossal American bookshop chain, not former West Ham footballers Bobby Barnes and Mark Noble)

www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/peter-o...

David Bowie, Occultist - Pittsburgh Review of Books ‘It’s been a recurrent qualification of my work from the day I started writing,’ said David Bowie in 1994. ‘A very early example, I suppose, is “Space

And another excerpt keeping rather intimidatingly intellectual company in the Pittsburgh Review of Books (@pghreviewofbooks.bsky.social)

pghrev.com/david-bowie-...

The Church of David Bowie The idea of the “rock god” was born in 1971 in an article in the Edwardsville Intelligencer, a newspaper in Illinois, USA. But David Bowie had long believed in such beings, and now he was about to …

Some pleasing stuff happening in the States, with an excerpt of the book in the esteemed Literary Hub (@literaryhub.bsky.social)

lithub.com/the-church-o...

When I was writing my book, all I really wanted was to see in my local Waterstones one day. And now - there it is, between Matthew McConaughey and Paul McCartney!

There's been plenty else going in the book's first week out in the world. Here are some particularly lovely things:

Thank you, Amber x

She was an enemy of the bland, the anodyne, the mushy, the twee. She also loved Neighbours and Home & Away. She could see things no one else could. She was appalling at housework and was a vicar's wife who was as far from the stereotypical vicar's wife as was possible to be

I wish you'd known her

She barely sold a painting in her life, but she could be brilliant. Here are a couple of my favourites (the one on the left is Trafalgar Square on the day of the 1981 Royal Wedding)