Exploring the bookshelf contents of Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse was Camden’s finest musical deity. She was a true musical elixir for real-life mundanity or blues. Winehouse was a firecracker, bursting with musical talent, a lover of literature, music, and the movies. Delving into the archives stored within her bookshelf only showcased her eclecticism when absorbing the world around her.
Winehouse drew music fans to her vocal and lyrical talent from a young age, breaking onto the scene with hits like ‘Rehab’, ‘Back To Black’, and ‘You Know I’m No Good’. Her unmatched fusion of jazz, soul, R&B, and pop has solidified her as one of music’s most important contributions. Although society appreciates her more posthumously, partially due to the nature of 2000s British media along with the stigma attached to substance addiction, Winehouse is now regarded as one of the most profoundly authentic artists ever to exist.
Musical talent aside, Winehouse was also an avid learner of both esteemed and niche works of literature. Before her book collection was auctioned off at Catawiki, it caused a stir among bookworms and music fans, who noted her diverse reading choices. Winehouse’s choice of books perfectly reflects who she was as a person and what she believed in.
The recovered works also sported Winehouse’s marks of love, including stains from coffee and tea, lipstick marks, unfinished lyrics, doodles, and personal notes. Some of these also include books gifted to her, like from her ex-husband Blake Fielder Civil, along with some about or by other musicians battling addiction, such as Jimi Hendrix, Boy George, and Anthony Kiedis.
Her literary collection weaves together a captivating mix of genres and styles, encompassing well-thumbed favourites such as Jackie Collins’ Hollywood Wives, James Ellroy’s LA Confidential, Maya Angelou’s poetic memoirs, and Charles Bukowski’s rebellious Ham on Rye. From Suzanne Portnoy’s The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker: An Erotic Memoir to Biker Bible: Bible for the Nations, the titles reflect Winehouse’s intriguing and diverse literary preferences.
Apart from their literary significance, Winehouse’s collection also provides a poignant and personal glimpse into her life. Whether it’s her grandmother’s email written on a bookmark or the guest list for a party scribbled on the final pages of a book, these volumes carry traces of her everyday existence and moments.
Winehouse’s book collection comprised 230 books in total, standing as a powerful reminder of the singer’s vast expanse of influences and sources of inspiration. It showcased a glimpse into the different facets of her life, alluding to her impassioned love for literature. When the collection went up for auction, Rebecca Romney, co-founder of the company that brought the collection together, said: “This was a collection that deserved, as much as possible, to stay together. Not only because they spoke biographically about Winehouse’s life, but also because they spoke to her work as an artist and as a writer.”
