These books are by far the most complete and best researched David Bowie books I have ever seen. (...) To give you an impression of "Never Get Old" here are some details from the book:

After the concert in Beckenham (19-3-1970) Angie and David stayed all night with Clare Shenstone and her brother. The next day they woke up late and had to hurry for their own wedding at 11.00 p.m. May 1970 Tony DeFries became Davids new manager and they started working on their plan to make David Bowie the biggest star the world had ever seen.
Angie taught David to provoke. They experimented with role-playing, wearing each others clothes and shared their bed with the same boyfriends and girlfriends. DeFries advice was very simple: If you want to be a star, act like a star. Spend a lot of money and people will think you are a big star.

(...)In September 1976 David moved to Berlin and got control over his cocaine addiction. He collaborated with Brian Eno and created the trilogy Low (January 1977), Heroes (October 1977) and Lodger (May 1979). Bowie and Iggy Pop often had breakfast in the gay bar Anderes Ufer. In the discotheques they got to know transsexuals (like Zazie de Paris), fashion models (like Rosalia di Kulessa), and painters (like Artur Vogdt). The work of Berthold Brecht and Kurt Weill fascinated Bowie. He drank heavily and was a regular visitor to a bar called Joe's Beer House. He started dating Romy Haag (a Dutch transsexual, who owned the nightclub Chez Romy). Her revue was an inspiration for the Boys keep swinging video.

In 1983 David entered mainstream music and started to make money. He pleased a lot of new fans and disappointed a lot of his older fans with the album Lets dance (April 1983), produced by Nile Rodgers (best known from Chic). Actress Lee Ping appeared in the video China girl and stayed his lover for the most of 1983. The scene with Bowie and Lee Ping making love naked on the beach, was banned in a lot of countries. Iggy Pop wrote the song China girl in 1976 for Mitsu (half Norwegian / half Tai) whom later died of an overdose.

(...) Jean-Paul Heck (Music Journalist for music magazine Aloha and newspaper De Telegraaf, Winner of the Jip Golsteijn prize 2004) commented on the books: "A great ode to a man who deserves his own encyclopaedia." The Voyeur absolutely agrees with Jean-Paul. These two books are the most exhaustive and best researched books about Bowie ever published. An absolute must for every Bowiefan.

The Voyeur, Dutch Bowie Fanclub

English translation of a review in the Italian magazine RARO!

An encyclopaedic opera dedicated to the "white duke" compiled with devoted patience by Wim Hendrikse, eccentric Dutchman who became - as he declares himself - a Bowie fan around 7 pm on February the 7th, 1974.
More than one thousand pages in a big layout, divided in two volumes where - in cronological order - one thousand concerts (including tv shows) are examined.
The reader will find listed more than 3.500 bootlegs, thousands of cds, lps and singles, quoted by label and catalogue number, but with just a few black and white pictures and no hints about value. Written in English, this work contains a wholesome of useful news like the dates of all the public appearances, length and quality of concerts and videos, collaborations, what Bowie said during interviews, covers, bibliography. All of this compiled by a maniac super fan to the benefit of Bowie super fan maniacs like him.

Both books can be bought on line at www.gopherpublishers.com.
Andrea Tinari (RARO!)

The first question one might ask is: Are they worth the money? In short: YES

Wims books are an update on Pimms classic "The Concert Tapes" and what an acomplishment. The books lists a lot (probably not all, but who knows?) of events in the life of David Bowie.

Articles, books, records and performances take up most of the space, but also small nuggets of information about his private life can be found.
To us (or myself at least) the most interesting part is the description of the performances. Wim lists all known bootlegs and recordings from any performance mentioned in the book. He gives details of bootleg titles, labels (if known) and telltale comments from Bowie, that makes it possible to identify any given performance.
All this information makes these two volumes indispensable to any serious collector of Bowie bootlegs.

The second question one might ask is: Aren't there any weaknesses? . and yes there are weaknesses too.

First of all Wim has elected not to list setlists from live performances, only from radio and tv apperances. This makes it hard to make sure that one has the correct version of any specific bootleg.
Second, there is no quality rating on the bootlegs (only on the tapes - copied from Bassman perhaps?). How does one choose between the wide range of bootlegs available from any given show? Well, that's not something you can use these books for.
Third and last, there is a little too much credit given to bootlegs (Reality and other) with "Artwork by Saloca" and "Tungsten" and there is bound to be others. Not that I do not want to give credit where credit is due, but it is obvious that the whole mp3 issue is not something that Wim considers a problem since A: Any recording that has been thru the hands of our favorite Brasilian vixen should be regarded with more than just a little suspicion and B: Tungsten and others makes beautiful artwork, but as far as I know, only for recordings already in circulation, and a great deal of these stem directly from BA, where original artwork and disc layout is not something that anyone bothers to care too much about.

Now, that aside the books are on the whole a great buy. There is so much more info crammed on these pages than in any, and I mean ANY, other book I have ever read about Bowie. The layout is nice and it is easy to find the information one is looking for (provided that you know the exact date).

This is the kind of work that I, as a Bowie collector want to support and love to see out there, and my advice to you is: Buy it!