I just finished reading David Calonne's book on Bukowski in the "Critical Lives" series published by Reaktion Press. It's a short narrative (about 180 pages) that took me only a few days to complete (I'm a slow reader, often distracted by the impulse to take notes) ... it has a focus on Bukowski's writing and left me wanted to get back to several of Bukowski's pieces of prose, particularly ... I highly recommend it ...
My only complaint about David Calonne's book on Bukowski is that he opted to not mention that Bukowski's novel Women went into a second edition that undid the editorial "amendments" to the text introduced by the editor John Martin ... given how Bukowski seemed to be looking forward to the novel's publication (as mentioned by Calonne), I would have thought that this glitch, if I can put it this way, would have been important to mention ... one wonders how it affected the relationship between Bukowski and Martin ... anyway, the book is still a great read in my eyes and I'm genuinely glad that I took a bit of a break from my intended reading to quickly give it a try ... cheers, DaP