The writer that Anthony Bourdain and David Bowie agreed was brilliant: “The font of all wisdom”

An article explores the eclectic reading tastes of David Bowie and the late Anthony Bourdain, revealing that both cultural icons independently named George Orwell among their most admired writers. Bowie, who described himself as a voracious reader, included Orwell's works on a list of 100 favourite books compiled for a 2013 exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, while Bourdain praised Orwell in an interview with The New York Times as "the font of all wisdom," adding that "Orwell is right about nearly everything."

Bowie's list spanned genres from music to politics and included two Orwell works, Inside the Whale and Other Essays and 1984, the latter of which influenced several of his songs and an unrealised West End musical. Bourdain, who also cited Graham Greene and Hunter S Thompson as influences, selected Orwell's Essays and the essay Politics and the English Language as favourites. The piece notes that Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair, remains renowned for blending social criticism with fiction and nonfiction, with the term "Orwellian" still widely used to describe oppressive political systems.