10 Books on Bob Dylan

I always wanted to create a list of Bob Dylan books that I love, but there's so many that I'd probably be here all day. So what I've done now is I've split it into sets of 10 books each and, hopefully, we can all be on the same page and the article won't be so long.

Books about Bob Dylan are always fascinating to read. I mean there are so many that I own and so many I read in the libraries of universities whilst I was studying from the ages of 18 to 22 years old. Bob Dylan is an incredibly enigmatic character and I feel like there is so much to read on him and his music. It's all very interesting and I hope you give some of the books about him a good read as well.

Bob Dylan's career has been under the microscope more than once and I think that people writing about him is both fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating because I like to hear other people have their views on him, but also frustrating because everyone claims to be the best on the knowledge of Bob Dylan. We will never really know very much about Bob Dylan and that's the whole point.

Shall we get on with the list then:

10. That Thin, Wild Mercury Sound: Dylan, Nashville, and the Making of 'Blonde on Blonde' by Daryl Sanders

Pages: 256

That Thin, Wild, Mercury Sound is a book about how the seminal album Blonde on Blonde was made. I like the fact that this book goes through and clears up some misconceptions about the album and how it was made. I also like the fact that there is a lot of information, but it's not overwhelming. Daryl Sanders doesn't act like he knows everything about Bob Dylan and Blonde on Blonde, but the information is still in good supply.

There's also a lot of new information from people who were there, some interviews, and other sources. This means new conclusions can be drawn and, well, I don't really want to give the book away because I want you to read it. This is an amazing book to read about Bob Dylan and the search for that sound that he got during the Blonde on Blonde sessions. It's a really good look at him at the height of his writing career and the climb to his fame. It's a great album and a well-written book without assumptions or people claiming that they know everything.

9. The Mammoth Book of Bob Dylan by Sean Egan

Pages: 618

This book is called the "Mammoth" book for a reason, it's pretty big and it's all about our favourite musician and poet, Bob Dylan. This book goes through all the seminal aspects of Dylan, from the 1960s when he created all his "protest" songs (apparently, "all of (his) songs are protest songs"—Dylan fans will understand that one) all the way through to the album Time Out of Mind and more.

I like this book because of its clear writing about Bob Dylan. It doesn't try to get too into the whys and reasonings behind songs and albums, it's giving you the history of it all and that's interesting enough. There's lots and lots of sources in this book, which makes it all the better to read. There's stuff from people who have written about Dylan like this book has, there's stuff from Dylanologists, and there's even evidence from interviews in which Bob Dylan speaks for himself. This book, I feel, is one of the better books on Bob Dylan. I would love for you to read it.

8. Bob Dylan: Too Much of Nothing by Derek Barker

Pages: 320

This book is set during John Wesley Harding and the 12 years after that time, up to the start of the Gospel Era. It's an interesting book, even though it's set in a weird place in Bob Dylan's career. I found this book pretty difficult to get through because it moved a bit quickly, and the book itself is fairly short for covering 12 years. The title refers to a song on the Basement Tapes album and consists of the different times of Bob Dylan— from JWH through, to his stuff with the Band, through Planet Waves, and Before the Flood—I just feel like it stands a bit short.

Apart from that, it is well-written and fun to read. It has some good little anecdotes and analysis to read in there and is good for any person starting their journey into Dylan who wants to learn about a more obscure era. Personally, I think it's just a bit short and that's the only downside.

7. Bob Dylan: A Year and a Day by Daniel Kramer

Pages: 280

I love this book so much because of its versatility. There's photographs that show the incredible details of Bob Dylan's life in the early to mid-60s and there's short little stories everywhere that give you firsthand insight into how Bob Dylan acts towards photographers and what he was doing at the time they were taken. There's something amazingly timeless about seeing these photographs of Bob Dylan that Daniel Kramer took because of the way they depict another side of Bob Dylan (laughs in Bob Dylan). They depict him as a happy man who wasn't really a poser; the photographs are very natural and give you something that you probably didn't know about Dylan—he still loves having fun, though he was a serious man.

6. Bob Dylan: The Day I Was There by Neil Cossar

Pages: 448

This book is quite possibly one of my personal favourites because it doesn't try to over-analyse the songs or delve into too much detail about the Dylanology. It's a book about Bobcats, for Bobcats. It's all about the different people: Robbie Robertson, Joan Baez, John Lennon, and many many more, and where they saw Bob Dylan and what he was doing. It's all about collecting all those memories, it has pictures and stories and it's so personal. I love this book because it's not trying to make itself seem clever, it's just a book of people's lovely memories seeing, talking to, being near, and interacting with Bob Dylan at the heights of his career. It's a wonderful, wonderful book and I'd love for you to read it because I'm sure you'd enjoy it as much as I did.

5. 'Time Out of Mind': The Lives of Bob Dylan by Ian Bell

Pages: 576

This book is pretty good because it's more like a history book than an analysis. It's trying to tell you a story about Bob Dylan's 1970s rebirth, 1980s slump, and 1990s return to form. I love this book, again, because it doesn't try to be too clever about Bob Dylan's career. It's not trying to tell you how much it knows—it knows what it's making are just assumptions and can only be confirmed by awards and record sales. I do believe (though I can't recall off the top of my head) that Time Out of Mind won a Grammy. This is what the book is trying to get at.

The question in this book is what happened through the 70s and 80s to make Bob Dylan return to this poetic form in Time Out of Mind? It was a form he had previously abandoned for other ventures in music.

4. Why Dylan Matters by Richard F. Thomas

Pages: 368

Bob Dylan has mattered for ages, but since his win of the Nobel Prize for Literature, why does he still matter? Richard F. Thomas explores the many answers to how Bob Dylan has managed to remain the timeless figure of folk and the 20th Century's greatest poet.

The reason I love this book is it is kind of every Bobcat's battle cry. It's making the case for Bob Dylan winning the Nobel Prize for Literature and it's giving him this status that stands next to poets like Ovid in the history books. I'm not going to lie, Bob Dylan, in a thousand years, will be just as respected as Homer and The Iliad is at the moment. When we are all long gone, Bob Dylan's music and poetry will remain around and this is the exact case that Thomas is making. It's a brilliant book for Bobcats and Dylanologists alike, so please read it.

3. Friends and Other Strangers: Bob Dylan Examined by Harold Lepidus

Pages: 236

This is a book of a ton of articles by Harold Lepidus that puts Bob Dylan under the microscope. I'm not going to lie, I used some of these when studying Bob Dylan in poetry courses I've done in the past and it is a brilliant book to read if you want Dylanology in manageable bites of information. Harold Lepidus manages to go into massive levels of detail and give some brilliant analyses on Bob Dylan, the songs, the career, and even the transformations in this epic anthology of articles through others.

It doesn't try to keep the topic on Dylan though - the best thing about this book is that it looks at the singers/songwriters etc. who were influenced by Bob Dylan. Thus, it gives you more about the adaptation of Dylanology in the modern world than just an analysis on Bob Dylan ever could.

It's one of my all-time favourite Dylan books and is a must-read for any Dylanologist anywhere who is looking to study the effects of Dylan all around the world, and how he remains one of the most important figures in all of human history.

2. Bob Dylan: Writings 1968-2010 by Greil Marcus

Pages: 512

I hope all us Bobcats can just forgive Greil Marcus for his inaccurate review of Self Portrait when it came out in Rolling Stone Magazine. Let's concentrate on this book for a moment. It's filled with interesting notes about Bob Dylan's career throughout and has very interesting articles and writings about various sections on Bob Dylan—the man and the myth. Even though Greil Marcus does a good job of separating the man from the myth, I still can't help thinking that he's got a lot to learn from his review of Self Portrait. It is an incredible book filled with some real Dylanology and some real great writings on Bob Dylan's everlasting legacy. It's a book you should definitely read because it wires itself so close to the man, myth, and legend, Robert Zimmerman.

1. The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia by Michael Gray

Pages: 784

Bob Dylan's career spans over 40 years of Modern American Literary History and Michael Gray's Bob Dylan Encyclopedia seems to capture that perfectly. First of all, it captures the myth for us who want to worship him—the Bobcats. Then it goes into the depths of his mind for those of us who want to study him and dedicate our lives to him—the Dylanologists. Another book suitable for Bobcats and Dylanologists alike, I believe that Michael Gray's encyclopedia is one of the most expansive things I've ever read on Bob Dylan. Containing some incredible amounts of research, just by reading it, you can tell how much work went into this book. This must have taken years and years to write!

Conclusion

The brilliance of Bob Dylan has been captured in literature and in song all throughout the last 40 to 50 years of history. There have been a ton of writings on him and his expansive career, and the way he has touched so many lives in his time is literally unrivalled by anyone in his field. There's an incredible amount of respect for Bob Dylan, and whether you are a Bobcat, a Dylanologist, or someone who has just discovered their new found love for our Bobby, you can be sure that there is a book out there for you to enjoy about your hero.