10 books you should read in October, including David Bowie’s Moonage Daydream and William Shatner’s Boldly Go

Also check out Nerd by Maya Phillips, Demon Copperhead from Barbara Kingsolver, and more

By Cat Auer | September 27, 2022 | 12:00pm

Books News David Bowie

10 books you should read in October, including David Bowie’s Moonage Daydream and William Shatner’s Boldly Go

Clockwork from bottom left: Boldly Go (Image: Atria); Demon Copperhead (Image: Harper); Ghost Town (Image: Europa Editions); Liberation Day (Image: Random House); Nerds: Adventures In Fandom From This Universe To The Multiverse (Image: Atria); Nights Of Plague (Image: Knopf); Moonage Daydream (Image: Genesis Publications) Graphic: Libby McGuire

Every month, a deluge of new books comes flooding out from big publishers, indie houses, and self-publishing platforms. To help you navigate the wave of titles arriving in October, The A.V. Club has narrowed down the options to 10 books we’re most excited about, including a collection of hundreds of photographs chronicling David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust era, a ninth autobiographical outing from Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner; and the tumultuous memoirs of Fresh Off The Boat star Constance Wu.

Moonage Daydream: The Life And Times Of Ziggy Stardust (Anniversary Edition), text by David Bowie and photos by Mick Rock (October 4, Genesis Publications)

Bowie fans, rejoice: Moonage Daydream is back in print. Two anniversaries are in play for this reissue: It’s been 50 years since ’s album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, and 20 years since the original U.K. publication of Moonage Daydream, the vault-opening, limited-edition collab between Bowie and photographer Mick Rock. Chronicling the Ziggy era, or more specifically, as Bowie put it, “the UK/US Stardust times,” Daydream showcases Bowie’s comments as sparked by hundreds of Rock’s tour, promo, and backstage images. Peppered throughout are hand-written pages, typed tour schedules, show posters, and other ephemera. Among broader tour memories and anecdotes of fellow rockers (Elton John, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and more) are fine-grain details like some inspirations behind Bowie’s alter ego: Daniela Parmar and a Kansai Yamamoto model (for Ziggy’s iconic red, cropped hairstyle), Samantha in Bewitched (for his anchor-symbol face-art in the “John, I’m Only Dancing” video), painter Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks (for the composition for a print ad). Don’t fake it, baby—lay the real thing on me.

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