My rough estimate is that he has read less than 50 books since 1994; but he never was an intellectual anyway, his main areas of interest were always films and 50s-70s pop music. Books were just things which he picked up from time to time, and if he managed to finish one it made him feel superior to everyone around him. I would be surprised if he has finished more than 150-200 books in his entire life. He read some feminist literature in the late 70s/early 80s, along with film and crime books. 'Taste of Honey' and 'Down by Grand Central Station' which he devoured time and time again are about 80 and 60 pages long, respectively. Longer books were mostly beyond him.
In interviews down through the years he has mentioned just about every book that he's ever completed, apart from a few which he keeps 'in reserve'. Recently he has been retroactively bolstering the amount of books that he read in his earlier years, adding authors which he actually more likely read in the 00s and '10s to add to the 'mythology'. An example of this is The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers; he never mentioned this book until a questionnaire last year some time, claiming to have discovered it in his teens and that it had a major effect on him. Why would he wait 30 years to mention it?
I imagine he read it a couple of years ago and realised he should have done so 40 years earlier, so now he says that he did. Other examples include Patrick MacGill and Robert Herrick from 'Autobiography'. The fifteen year old Morrissey hated school, coming away with one GSCE, what are the chances that he sat at home appreciating the poetry of MacGill and Herrick? He was watching Coronation Street and Top of the Pops. Not even '77 Sunset Strip; that came later as well. There's an interview with Morrissey from the mid-80s at his home in Chelsea, where the interviewer looks through his bookshelf only to find all of the books which he had been discussing for the past number of years. The interviewer asks whether Morrissey wants to diversify and widen his areas of interest, to which Morrissey responds by questioning why would he would want to do that.
When he became famous his days of discovery were over; he was content throughout the 1980s to keep returning to the books that had served him so well six years before.
He read very few 'new' books during that time, the diaries of Kenneth Williams and Joe Orton were two notable ones. In the early 90s he came across Dickens for the first time, along with reading a couple of books each by the previously mentioned Hardy and Eliot (I don't believe he read Middlemarch in the early 1980s apart from the first few pages).
By the mid-1990s when 'Jake' came into his life is when it appears he went from reading semi-regularly to not reading at all. He felt like he was intelligent enough by then, and the racism accusations caused him to lose focus. He became more obsessive over his image and couldn't concentrate on the words written by others, which seemed unimportant to him by then. It's my contention that he has barely read a book since then (approximately 20 years).
In questionnaires he mentions that he prefers to start a book at the back page and work towards the beginning, also that he has to have a pencil in hand to underline words he doesn't know and that he likes to take his time with it; sure signs of a man with poor concentration skills. He has never had any interest in History (he proved his lack of historical knowledge in the lyric to IBEH when he completely misunderstood the Royal Family's feelings towards Oliver Cromwell), nor in Art (Robert Mackie letters, TTY questionnaire where he said he never cared about Art but regretted it and has been going to museums), classical music (expressed his disinterest in a 1990s interview), politics (only a fleeting interest, and a tenuous grasp of it, see WPINOYB).
Basically, he only ever cared about films, pop music and 'some' books, yet managed to pass himself off as an 'intellectual' to disenfranchised youngsters who were looking for their messiah. Many of whom are on this forum right now, still gullible, and still being misled. And STILL he never was able to produce a “My Coo Ca Choo” – what a hack!
But let’s not forget why we came here tonight: to give Alvin a proper send-off since this cad would rather post a statement about his top ten shows on the tour than pay homage to one of his predecessors. Below is “Little Red Dress”, which reached #7 in 1974, something that the charts-obsessed Morrissey surely would have informed us about if he had the decency to write a few lines.
As for me, I’m too sad to write anything else.
Life is a Pigsty.
R.I.P Bernard Jewry 1942-2014 (no, that’s not an anti-semitic remark, don’t start on that again!)
Question: Am I going to offer any of you a personal response?
Answer: You must be out of your tiny minds! But you can try if you like, because it brings me amusement.
Addendum: I would have posted the live version, but that has J**** S***** introducing it. At least I didn’t post “Alvin Stardust at the Wheeltappers” which has a certain B****** M****** offering the introduction, which would have caused a couple of the people on this forum to start frothing at the mouth. Like I give a fcuk! He seems like an angel now compared with S*****, Rolf, and the rest, doesn’t he? He wasn't very funny though, but while Esther Rantzen and co. were deriding him, they were allowing S***** and his cohorts to get away with something much, much worse. Don’t get me started on what Ben Elton did to poor Benny Hill either; he can hang for all I care! And so can the rest of ye, on my every word! LOLOL!