As a new version of the exhibition David Bowie Is opens this week at the Art Gallery of Ontario, curators have revealed a list of his top 100 must-read books, giving a fascinating insight into the mind of the influential musician and style icon.

The show, which offered unprecedented access to Bowie's own archive, became the most popular ever mounted by London's V&A when it ran there earlier this year.

As the Guardian's Alexis Petridis pointed out at the time, the Bowie story is so well-known that "unless it's content to retell a very hackneyed story indeed, David Bowie Is has to find a way of casting new light on some of the most over-analysed and discussed music in rock history."

The reading list, with books presented in chronological order rather than order of preference, provides Ontario with a new angle. American classics of the 50s and 60s are strongly represented – On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood – as are tales of working-class boys made good, which emerged in the postwar years: Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar and Room at the Top by John Braine, and The Outsider by Colin Wilson, a study of creativity and the mindset of misfits. RD Laing's The Divided Self speaks to a fascination with psychotherapy and creativity, as does The Origin of Consciousness in the breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes. There is no evidence that Bowie's scientific inquries extend beyond psychology – Stephen Hawking's cosmic theories are out – but his tastes are otherwise broad.

Political history features, in titles such as Christopher Hitchens' The Trial of Henry Kissinger, and Orlando Figes' A People's Tragedy, as well as collections of interviews.

A broad taste for fiction emerges, too, from early Ian McEwan (In Between the Sheets) and Martin Amis's definitive 1980s novel, Money, to 21st-century fictions such as Sarah Waters' Fingersmith and Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.

He also displays a penchant for irreverent humour, with the inclusion of Spike Milligan's comic novel Puckoon, and the entire oeuvres of Viz and Private Eye.

And, of course, there's music – with soul music especially prominent. Bowie selects Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom by Peter Guralnick, and Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music by Gerri Hirshey, as well as Charlie Gillett's The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll.

David Bowie's top 100 must-read books

The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby (2008)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (2007)

The Coast of Utopia (trilogy), Tom Stoppard (2007)

Teenage: The Creation of Youth 1875-1945, Jon Savage (2007)

Fingersmith, Sarah Waters (2002)

The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens (2001)

Mr Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder, Lawrence Weschler (1997)

A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1890-1924, Orlando Figes (1997)

The Insult, Rupert Thomson (1996)

Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon (1995)

The Bird Artist, Howard Norman (1994)

Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir, Anatole Broyard (1993)

Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective, Arthur C Danto (1992)

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, Camille Paglia (1990)

David Bomberg, Richard Cork (1988)

Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom, Peter Guralnick (1986)

The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin (1986)

Hawksmoor, Peter Ackroyd (1985)

Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music, Gerri Hirshey (1984)

Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter (1984)

Money, Martin Amis (1984)

White Noise, Don DeLillo (1984)

Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes (1984)

The Life and Times of Little Richard, Charles White (1984)

A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn (1980)

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (1980)

Interviews with Francis Bacon, David Sylvester (1980)

Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler (1980)

Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess (1980)

Raw, a "graphix magazine" (1980-91)

Viz, magazine (1979 –)

The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels (1979)

Metropolitan Life, Fran Lebowitz (1978)

In Between the Sheets, Ian McEwan (1978)

Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, ed Malcolm Cowley (1977)

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes (1976)

Tales of Beatnik Glory, Ed Saunders (1975)

Mystery Train, Greil Marcus (1975)

Selected Poems, Frank O'Hara (1974)

Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s, Otto Friedrich (1972)

n Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Re-definition of Culture, George Steiner (1971) Octobriana and the Russian Underground, Peter Sadecky (1971)

The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, Charlie Gillett(1970)

The Quest for Christa T, Christa Wolf (1968)

Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock, Nik Cohn (1968)

The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)

Journey into the Whirlwind, Eugenia Ginzburg (1967)

Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr (1966)

In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (1965)

City of Night, John Rechy (1965)

Herzog, Saul Bellow (1964)

Puckoon, Spike Milligan (1963)

The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford (1963)

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea, Yukio Mishima (1963)

The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (1963)

A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (1962)

Inside the Whale and Other Essays, George Orwell (1962)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark (1961)

Private Eye, magazine (1961 –)

On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious, Douglas Harding (1961)

Silence: Lectures and Writing, John Cage (1961)

Strange People, Frank Edwards (1961)

The Divided Self, RD Laing (1960)

All the Emperor's Horses, David Kidd (1960)

Billy Liar, Keith Waterhouse (1959)

The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa (1958)

On the Road, Jack Kerouac (1957)

The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard (1957)

Room at the Top, John Braine (1957)

A Grave for a Dolphin, Alberto Denti di Pirajno (1956)

The Outsider, Colin Wilson (1956)

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (1955)

Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell (1949)

The Street, Ann Petry (1946)

Black Boy, Richard Wright (1945)