BOWIELAND
On sale
26th February 2026
Price: £10.99
‘Fabulous… What a ghost story! A ripping read.’ IAIN SINCLAIR, author of London Orbital
‘Vividly celebrates Bowie as not just a chameleonic visionary, but a nomadic one, a creature informed by place and circumstance.’ STUART MACONIE
‘Bowieland will make you want to take your very own pilgrimage, accompanied by the great man’s songs.’ ALEXANDER LARMAN, THE OBSERVER
‘A sublime, time-travelling quest.’ TIFFANY MURRAY, author of My Family and Other Rock Stars
‘A joyful and fascinating journey which anchors Bowie’s genius in the pavements.’ KEVIN LOADER, producer of The Buddha of Suburbia
BOWIE IS STILL OUT THERE…
Following open heart surgery, Peter Carpenter was given one instruction – walk if you want to stay alive. So, when his hero died in 2016, he knew what he had to do. The figure who was to so many a companion and guide had left no single focal point for homage. To reconnect with him, Carpenter would take a walk into the past, to the places where David Jones became something more: David Bowie.
Leaving behind well-known shrines to Bowie, he journeyed through South London edgelands to obscurer haunts. Carpenter’s quest, a series of happy accidents and chance meetings, took him to Bickley as well as Berlin and Brixton, to Eel Pie Island as well as Heddon Street and Beckenham.
Carpenter’s perambulations echo Bowie’s own wandering creative spirit. They reveal multiple influences, both conscious and unconscious, in Bowie’s creative development. Ultimately, Carpenter reaches a fresh understanding of where Bowie sits in the culture, not as an outlier, but as part of a tradition, informed by those artists, poets and musicians who passed on their wisdom to him. A celebration of the revelatory powers of walking, and by no means just for Bowie obsessives, BOWIELAND opens up our geography in ways rarely seen or so well understood.
‘Vividly celebrates Bowie as not just a chameleonic visionary, but a nomadic one, a creature informed by place and circumstance.’ STUART MACONIE
‘Bowieland will make you want to take your very own pilgrimage, accompanied by the great man’s songs.’ ALEXANDER LARMAN, THE OBSERVER
‘A sublime, time-travelling quest.’ TIFFANY MURRAY, author of My Family and Other Rock Stars
‘A joyful and fascinating journey which anchors Bowie’s genius in the pavements.’ KEVIN LOADER, producer of The Buddha of Suburbia
BOWIE IS STILL OUT THERE…
Following open heart surgery, Peter Carpenter was given one instruction – walk if you want to stay alive. So, when his hero died in 2016, he knew what he had to do. The figure who was to so many a companion and guide had left no single focal point for homage. To reconnect with him, Carpenter would take a walk into the past, to the places where David Jones became something more: David Bowie.
Leaving behind well-known shrines to Bowie, he journeyed through South London edgelands to obscurer haunts. Carpenter’s quest, a series of happy accidents and chance meetings, took him to Bickley as well as Berlin and Brixton, to Eel Pie Island as well as Heddon Street and Beckenham.
Carpenter’s perambulations echo Bowie’s own wandering creative spirit. They reveal multiple influences, both conscious and unconscious, in Bowie’s creative development. Ultimately, Carpenter reaches a fresh understanding of where Bowie sits in the culture, not as an outlier, but as part of a tradition, informed by those artists, poets and musicians who passed on their wisdom to him. A celebration of the revelatory powers of walking, and by no means just for Bowie obsessives, BOWIELAND opens up our geography in ways rarely seen or so well understood.
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
'A ripping read... With life-affirming tread, Peter Carpenter tracks down fugitive selves, memory phantoms, through places lesser surveyors thought had vanished for ever, in quest of his bright trickster angel, the many named and multi-masked David Bowie.'
'A sublime, time-travelling quest, a 21st century Baedeker of the edgelands.'
' By following the suburban songlines of Bowie's life, and his own, Carpenter takes us on a joyful and fascinating journey which anchors Bowie's genius in the pavements and lost monuments of our changing world.'
'Part fan pilgrimage, part psycho-geographical dérive, Bowieland vividly celebrates Bowie as not just a chameleonic visionary, but a nomadic one, a creature informed by place and circumstance'
A heartfelt, entertaining and profound tale.
'In this innovative and inventive slice of psychogeography, Bowie aficionado Peter Carpenter embarks upon a tour of places in southern England associated with the legend [David Bowie]... Bowieland will make you want to take your very own pilgrimage, accompanied by the great man's songs.'
'Full of literary, cultural, musical and historical references that shed light on Bowie's life and art, it's a delightful journey of discovery.'
Nomadic nuance informs a superior Bowie book. The term 'psychogeography' - finding personal connections in spaces and routes - had a moment of cool in the 2000s. It's now fallen from fashion, but poet/ essayist Peter Carpenter's thoughtful, rewarding book revives its allure.Pretty much every Bowie angle and its wife has been covered by publishers, yet this, haunting the streets and shrines of Bowie lore, breathes new life into homage, elevating inquisitiveness to its own state of creativity. With elements of travelogue and memoir, it's a wry, wise twist on worship.
'Bowieland is a reminder of a the many ways in which its subject has come to pervade our culture [and] ignite our imaginations...'
'A moving reflection on place, influence and artistic legacy.'
'A delightful journey of discovery.'
'Fond biographical appreciation, personal memoir and psychogeographical investigation of place in the vein of Iain Sinclair...An enjoyable gazetteer to Bowie's broader hinterland.'
'A ripping read. What a ghost story! With life-affirming tread, Peter Carpenter tracks down fugitive selves, memory phantoms, through places lesser surveyors thought had vanished for ever, in quest of his bright trickster angel, the many named and multi-masked David Bowie. Here is a fugue of resistance and recovery, by way of gossip, anecdote, chance meeting. And a renewed sense of the undying mystery of things. Fabulous rewards for the blisters, dead ends and the enduring persistence in folly.'
'A sublime, time-travelling quest, a 21st century Baedeker of the edgelands. To save his life, Peter Carpenter must walk, so let him take you on a journey from Heddon Street to Berlin to Beckenham in search of our beloved Bowie, and ourselves.'
'Bowieland is living archaeology. By following the suburban songlines of Bowie's life, and his own, Carpenter takes us on a joyful and fascinating journey which anchors Bowie's genius in the pavements and lost monuments of our changing world. It's a pilgrimage full of surprising connections, mesmerising detail, and a passionate desire to discover the unexpected in the midst of our collective memories.'
'Part fan pilgrimage, part psycho-geographical dérive, Bowieland vividly celebrates Bowie as not just a chameleonic visionary, but a nomadic one, a creature informed by place and circumstance'
'A heartfelt, entertaining and profound tale. Written with the enthusiasm of a true fan, and the voice of a poet, Bowieland merges travelogue, detective story and memoir into a highly original book that I'm pretty sure would win the approval of the man himself.'
'From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads, the much-missed David Bowie was a musician as defined by place as he was by any of his other influences. In this innovative and inventive slice of psychogeography, Bowie aficionado Peter Carpenter embarks upon a tour of places in southern England associated with the legend. He discovers new and often surprising connections everywhere from Hastings (the Ashes to Ashes video location) to, inevitably, Bowie's birthplace in Brixton. Bowieland will make you want to take your very own pilgrimage, accompanied by the great man's songs.'
'Full of literary, cultural, musical and historical references that shed light on Bowie's life and art, it's a delightful journey of discovery
Nomadic nuance informs a superior Bowie book. The term 'psychogeography' - finding personal connections in spaces and routes - had a moment of cool in the 2000s. It's now fallen from fashion, but poet/ essayist Peter Carpenter's thoughtful, rewarding book revives its allure.Pretty much every Bowie angle and its wife has been covered by publishers, yet this, haunting the streets and shrines of Bowie lore, breathes new life into homage, elevating inquisitiveness to its own state of creativity. With elements of travelogue and memoir, it's a wry, wise twist on worship.
'Bowieland is a reminder of a the many ways in which its subject has come to pervade our culture [and] ignite our imaginations...'
'A moving reflection on place, influence and artistic legacy.'
'Fond biographical appreciation, personal memoir and psychogeographical investigation of place in the vein of Iain Sinclair...An enjoyable gazetteer to Bowie's broader hinterland.'