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Far Above the World: The Time and Space of David Bowie
'A wondrous collection of writings to provoke the Bowie fan into deepening their understanding of the man, not just the myth.' Dave Roberts, God is in the TV zine
'Insightful and vibrant, Far Above the World is a compelling reminder that Bowie's influence didn't end in 2016. Instead, it continues to illuminate the present and chart the path ahead.' The Voice
'I really enjoyed the intimacy of the read. A zoetrope of the life of David Robert Jones.' Bono
'I love Paul Morley's writing about David Bowie ... magical and inspired, like Bowie himself.' Johnny Marr
'A compelling chronicle of David Bowie's search for new ideas and where they led him. the keen-bean enthusiast and cunning strategist, the original and the imitator, the star and the bloke, the pale intellectual and the sexy rock-and-roller. Paul Morley brings them all together in this intriguingly philosophical study of a unique artist.' Neil Tennant
A landmark exploration of David Bowie as an everlasting cultural force and changemaker, by acclaimed writer Paul Morley.
In the ten years since the death of David Bowie in 2016 there has been no loss of interest in and fascination with his life, music and driven, complex personality. He is definitely one musician, one performer, destined not to be forgotten. The significant grief and sadness that greeted Bowie's death has evolved into a deeper, enduring love for his music, style, wit, artistic curiosity, sexual energy, flamboyant outsider spirit and insatiable, provocative appetite for life.
Far Above the World documents one of the UK's greatest creative artists, through the spectacularly colourful and vibrant journey of a man who constantly reinvented himself and his music. Bowie lived in the future, using the pop song to chronicle overwhelming and dangerous times, searching for the light, and creating a communication channel between post-war 20th century times and where(ever) we are now. This anniversary book will place him in the now and next, as much as is past, and argue that his songs, and his messages, reflections and warnings become ever more relevant and compelling as time passes.
'Insightful and vibrant, Far Above the World is a compelling reminder that Bowie's influence didn't end in 2016. Instead, it continues to illuminate the present and chart the path ahead.' The Voice
'I really enjoyed the intimacy of the read. A zoetrope of the life of David Robert Jones.' Bono
'I love Paul Morley's writing about David Bowie ... magical and inspired, like Bowie himself.' Johnny Marr
'A compelling chronicle of David Bowie's search for new ideas and where they led him. the keen-bean enthusiast and cunning strategist, the original and the imitator, the star and the bloke, the pale intellectual and the sexy rock-and-roller. Paul Morley brings them all together in this intriguingly philosophical study of a unique artist.' Neil Tennant
A landmark exploration of David Bowie as an everlasting cultural force and changemaker, by acclaimed writer Paul Morley.
In the ten years since the death of David Bowie in 2016 there has been no loss of interest in and fascination with his life, music and driven, complex personality. He is definitely one musician, one performer, destined not to be forgotten. The significant grief and sadness that greeted Bowie's death has evolved into a deeper, enduring love for his music, style, wit, artistic curiosity, sexual energy, flamboyant outsider spirit and insatiable, provocative appetite for life.
Far Above the World documents one of the UK's greatest creative artists, through the spectacularly colourful and vibrant journey of a man who constantly reinvented himself and his music. Bowie lived in the future, using the pop song to chronicle overwhelming and dangerous times, searching for the light, and creating a communication channel between post-war 20th century times and where(ever) we are now. This anniversary book will place him in the now and next, as much as is past, and argue that his songs, and his messages, reflections and warnings become ever more relevant and compelling as time passes.
- GenresBiography
457 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 6, 2025
2 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Paul Morley
34 books75 followersPaul Morley is an English journalist who wrote for the New Musical Express from 1977 to 1983, during one of its most successful periods, and has since written for a wide range of publications. He has also has been a band manager and promoter, as well as a television presenter.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 27, 2026
Far Above the World: The Time and Space of David Bowie (2025) by Paul Morley is his second Bowie book, following his 2016 book The Age of Bowie which arrived in the immediate wake of Bowie's death. Long time Morley admirers, and I am most definitely one, will know what to expect, this is another characteristically and predictably impressionistic biography.
No discussion of each release and tour, instead there's plenty of sideways thinking, provocation and cultural depth, for example artists and intellectual currents that shaped Bowie, and the philosophical freight behind the personas. Paul Morley's a divisive writer but I have always been Team Morley.
Another intriguingly philosophical study of a unique artist.
4/5
No discussion of each release and tour, instead there's plenty of sideways thinking, provocation and cultural depth, for example artists and intellectual currents that shaped Bowie, and the philosophical freight behind the personas. Paul Morley's a divisive writer but I have always been Team Morley.
Another intriguingly philosophical study of a unique artist.
4/5
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January 11, 2026Ten years gone, and you can't say he missed much, especially the stretch where we were all stuck inside our tin cans, able only to forlornly communicate over the ether, but it bred the psychosis of Bowie's LA exile rather than the creativity he normally found in alienation. Hell, there was even a Captain Tom to firmly signal, Augustulus-style, the step down from Major Tom's time; to confirm the diminution and the end of the era, the 2020s one will forever be associated with a spa oddity.
Paul Morley already published one book to mark the passing (and is now hinting at a possible trilogy). That was The Age Of Bowie, produced in the white heat of loss, and derived in part from the work he'd already done for the V&A's David Bowie Is exhibition. I've not looked at it since it came out, but I didn't feel like Morley was repeating himself here, though he is perhaps repeating a story more broadly familiar. This is mildly disappointing, especially after, at the launch event I attended in particular, the book was presented as a new approach, a delving into YouTube to find Bowie moments which were once localised in time and space but are now available to all, whenever – other angles, glimpses of abandoned personae who never became as fully realised as Halloween Jack, never mind Ziggy. There is a little of that, and it did inspire me to track down duets I'd never seen (oddly tentative with Marianne Faithfull as saucy nun on a Cher song; more assured than the performance merits with Cher, on many songs but sadly not a Marianne Faithfull one). More often, though, it's the familiar story, with something close to the familiar weighting – so everything from Buddha Of Suburbia to Heathen is covered in one sentence, for instance. There's more on the music from Bowie's wedding to Iman, say – though you can certainly argue that relationship usually gets too easily edged out in favour of the appalling Angie, and make some fairly grim guesses as to possible factors in that (plus, it feeds into a valuable consideration of Bowie and Florence). And Baal, which I'm not sure was even mentioned in the first bio I read, gets the best part of a chapter – though it's worth mentioning that the chapters here are often only a couple of pages, shorter than the paragraphs or possibly even the sentences in some Paul Morley books.
Which is the kicker here, isn't it, because it's Paul Morley, so even if you've heard the story, it never sounded quite like this before. Obviously your mileage will vary on whether that's a good thing; even as a fan, I don't think it comes off every time, and he's definitely gone a bit far here by letting his yoking together of often paradoxical pairs spread to the naming of every single chapter. But in the process, even if Ziggy and Berlin continue to take up most of the pagecount, Morley's keen to expand the featured roles in the supporting cast, so that DAM, Duffy and Boshier get as much attention as Eno and the Spiders. He even pushes the window a little past (his best since) Scary Monsters, arguing that, while what immediately followed was unexciting, Let's Dance itself was still Bowie setting the trends, albeit without such exciting followers as previously. Is the focus on less celebrated collaborators partly a way to reflect some light on himself as one of their number, what with that V&A connection? Absolutely. But fuck it, if I had a solid David Bowie connection, I'd be puffing myself up a bit about it too.
And besides, even when the familiar litany has the least that is new added to it – well, every society has its rituals and shared stories, and I'd certainly rather have more riffs on the Bowie legend than those interminable centuries of Bible fanfic.
Paul Morley already published one book to mark the passing (and is now hinting at a possible trilogy). That was The Age Of Bowie, produced in the white heat of loss, and derived in part from the work he'd already done for the V&A's David Bowie Is exhibition. I've not looked at it since it came out, but I didn't feel like Morley was repeating himself here, though he is perhaps repeating a story more broadly familiar. This is mildly disappointing, especially after, at the launch event I attended in particular, the book was presented as a new approach, a delving into YouTube to find Bowie moments which were once localised in time and space but are now available to all, whenever – other angles, glimpses of abandoned personae who never became as fully realised as Halloween Jack, never mind Ziggy. There is a little of that, and it did inspire me to track down duets I'd never seen (oddly tentative with Marianne Faithfull as saucy nun on a Cher song; more assured than the performance merits with Cher, on many songs but sadly not a Marianne Faithfull one). More often, though, it's the familiar story, with something close to the familiar weighting – so everything from Buddha Of Suburbia to Heathen is covered in one sentence, for instance. There's more on the music from Bowie's wedding to Iman, say – though you can certainly argue that relationship usually gets too easily edged out in favour of the appalling Angie, and make some fairly grim guesses as to possible factors in that (plus, it feeds into a valuable consideration of Bowie and Florence). And Baal, which I'm not sure was even mentioned in the first bio I read, gets the best part of a chapter – though it's worth mentioning that the chapters here are often only a couple of pages, shorter than the paragraphs or possibly even the sentences in some Paul Morley books.
Which is the kicker here, isn't it, because it's Paul Morley, so even if you've heard the story, it never sounded quite like this before. Obviously your mileage will vary on whether that's a good thing; even as a fan, I don't think it comes off every time, and he's definitely gone a bit far here by letting his yoking together of often paradoxical pairs spread to the naming of every single chapter. But in the process, even if Ziggy and Berlin continue to take up most of the pagecount, Morley's keen to expand the featured roles in the supporting cast, so that DAM, Duffy and Boshier get as much attention as Eno and the Spiders. He even pushes the window a little past (his best since) Scary Monsters, arguing that, while what immediately followed was unexciting, Let's Dance itself was still Bowie setting the trends, albeit without such exciting followers as previously. Is the focus on less celebrated collaborators partly a way to reflect some light on himself as one of their number, what with that V&A connection? Absolutely. But fuck it, if I had a solid David Bowie connection, I'd be puffing myself up a bit about it too.
And besides, even when the familiar litany has the least that is new added to it – well, every society has its rituals and shared stories, and I'd certainly rather have more riffs on the Bowie legend than those interminable centuries of Bible fanfic.
March 4, 2026
Slightly disappointed; I think you either enjoy Morley's writing style or don't. For me, just a bit too much purple passage meant I felt it was a bit pretentious but I can't fault the research he has put into this book.
January 7, 2026
interesting
March 6, 2026
Some really interesting insights here, but man were there some tangents too.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews