DYLAN BOOKS Monthly
June 2026
Welcome to the sixth issue of DYLAN BOOKS Monthly, a compilation of recent DYLAN BOOKS social media posts.
IN THIS ISSUE
The Six Books By Bob Dylan: the challenging one
The Six Books By Bob Dylan: the disappointing one
What’s The Best Bob Dylan Book You’ve Read?
Chronicles: the most highly regarded of Bob Dylan’s six books
The Bob Dylan Lyrics Books: 10 key takeaways
The Six Books By Bob Dylan: the monumental masterpiece
The Six Books By Bob Dylan: the odd one out
Four More New Dylan Books - with a nod to The Beatles
What Are The 10 Best Bob Dylan Books?
Peak Bob Dylan: 1963-78? Or 1991-2024? Or some other period?
BOB DYLAN’S SIX BOOKS: THE CHALLENGING ONE
Dylan wrote Tarantula in the mid-1960s. His revolutionary songwriting, culminating in Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, had challenged an audience reared on
”Moon in June” pop. Tarantula can be seen as a literary companion piece.
It’s not light reading: you have to work hard. Most readers, mystified, couldn’t stand the pace.
Tarantula’s mix of poetry, prose and letters can best be seen as a rough notebook, chronicling the response of a young, gifted thinker to life’s complexities. The writing is uneven, occasionally striking, occasionally witty.
Critical opinion has been predominantly negative. But the Nobel Prize might be encouraging closer scrutiny. Tarantula could be due a critical reappraisal.
Having failed to finish it several times, I’m about to try again, this time in short sessions. I expect to discover both stimulating and incomprehensible ideas.
Have you read Tarantula? What do you think of it?
(Bob Dylan, Tarantula, Scribner, 2004, pbk, 137pp.)
BOB DYLAN’S SIX BOOKS: THE DISAPPOINTING ONE
As a condition of receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature, Dylan was required to deliver a lecture. It was a chance for him to speak in depth about his enormous body of great work and maybe try explain where it comes from.
Bob Dylan: the Nobel Lecture (Simon & Schuster, 2017, hbk, 23pp) does that, to some extent. Alongside his acceptance speech at the awards ceremony*, the lecture has some delicious insights. But I’d hoped for more.
The bulk of the lecture has Dylan summarising the three books he credits as influences - Moby-Dick, All Quiet On The Western Front and The Odyssey.
I found that slightly disappointing.
To buy or not to buy? If you’re a collector, certainly - it’s a beautiful little artefact. Otherwise, you might prefer to access the complete lecture via the Nobel video on YouTube, with its substantial bonus of Dylan’s trademark narration.
* Bizarrely, it was delivered by the US Ambassador to Sweden. She handles her tough assignment with aplomb. Video on YouTube.
WHAT’S THE BEST BOB DYLAN BOOK YOU’VE READ?
Hi and a warm welcome to the many Bobfans who’ve recently started visiting DYLAN BOOKS.
I’d be grateful if you’d post a short comment telling us what’s the best book about or by Dylan that YOU’ve read.
Please take a look at some of the 100+ other posts here - I’ve been reviewing and ranking new and classic books about and by Bob Dylan for over a year now.
If you like what you see, please consider following DYLAN BOOKS and inviting your Dylan fan friends to check out the page.
Thanks,
Gerald Michael Smith, DYLAN BOOKS
CHRONICLES: THE MOST HIGHLY REGARDED OF BOB DYLAN’S SIX BOOKS
Chronicles, Volume One (Simon & Schuster, 2004, hbk, 293pp) is highly regarded. It burnished Dylan’s literary credentials well beyond the fanbase.
It’s not a conventional autobiography. Dylan broke the rules by (ironically) ignoring chronology, covering only fragments of his life and by mixing memory and invention. It’s beautifully crafted and consistently engaging.
Chronicles has many of the hallmarks of Dylan’s songwriting: originality, intelligence, delight in language, understanding of human nature and a thoroughly postmodern mindset. And it gives you unique insights into his creative process.
It kicked off a whole new publishing genre, inspiring more conventional autobiographies from contemporaries like Keith Richards, Patti Smith, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.
What do you think of Chronicles?
THE BOB DYLAN LYRICS BOOKS - 10 KEY TAKEAWAYS
Having introduced the five different editions of Dylan lyrics books in previous posts, here are my 10 key takeaways. Agree? Disagree? Corrections? Your comments are very welcome - “You’re right from your side…”.
1 Bob Dylan lyrics books are the most important Dylan books of all. Far more important than Chronicles, the best biographies, guides to the music or analyses of the songwriting.
2 There’s a confusing mass of different Dylan lyrics books but, essentially, there are five editions, first published in 1973, 1985, 2004, 2014/2016 and whenever the elusive 1961-2020 ed was published. To add to the confusion, there are hardback and paperback editions, different printings of the same edition and different publishers in different countries.
3 The most useful edition is always the most recent, currently 1961-2020. The rest are of interest to collectors.
4 The volume I cherish most is the original 1973 Knopf hardback.
5 The handsomest volume is the 1985 Knopf hardback.
6 The most collectable is the The Lyrics. Since 1962 (2014). It’s great artefact, but its weight and size mean you won’t actually use it much. Mine’s still shrink-wrapped.
7 The lyrics books, though very important, all have minor shortcomings. In his book The Bob Dylan Albums, Anthony Varesi documents some of their imperfections. As does Clinton Heylin.
8 Although Dylan is credited with multiple innovations in rockpop music, his wasn’t, surprisingly, the first book of lyrics. He was beaten to it by four years by The Beatles. Dylan’s was, of course, the first book of grown-up lyrics.
9 Dylan lyrics books have been translated into many languages. Translated lyrics are invaluable for non-English speakers - they present literal meanings. But they can’t replicate the poetry.
10 Bibliophobe Dylan fans don’t need to buy any lyrics books - the lyrics are freely available on the official Bob Dylan website.
BOB DYLAN’S SIX BOOKS: THE MONUMENTAL MASTERPIECE
Of the six books written by Bob Dylan, Lyrics is the most important - by a country mile. It’s a monumental masterpiece. It illustrates just why so many regard Dylan as a towering creative genius and a peerless explorer of what it means to be human.
And why he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Every Dylan home should have one. File next to The Complete Works Of William Shakespeare.
(Simon & Schuster, 2016, hbk, 679pp)
THE SIX BOOKS BY BOB DYLAN: THE ODD ONE OUT
Bob Dylan has written six books. Lyrics is monumentally important. Chronicles is highly regarded. The Nobel Lecture offers valuable insights. Philosophy of Modern Song has many fans. Tarantula, initially derided, might be due for a reappraisal.
Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric: The Lost Manuscript - photos by Barry Feinstein, text by Dylan (Simon & Schuster, 2008, hbk, 140pp) is the odd one out.
Feinstein’s splendid photos beautifully evoke the fading Hollywood of the 1950s/60s. In 1964, Dylan - a movie nut - supplied 23 short ”prose-poems”, to accompany some of the photos.
The poems will interest keen students of Dylan’s writing. But it’s slim pickings: Foto-Rhetoric is the least essential book “written by” Bob Dylan.
FOUR MORE NEW DYLAN BOOKS - WITH A NOD TO THE BEATLES
New Dylan books just keep on coming - these four drop in the next few weeks.
Are they worth reading? Watch this space.
WHAT ARE THE 10 BEST BOB DYLAN BOOKS?
Delving deeply into Dylan?
Among the many hundreds of Dylan books, there are some must-reads, guaranteed to enrich your enjoyment. But where to start?
This 10 Best Bob Dylan Books is my ranking of the key titles in the key areas. In the video, my pile is arranged in rank order, from #10 Chronicles on top, to #1 Lyrics at the bottom.
Ranking Bob Dylan books is very subjective - ”… Ev’rything I’m a-sayin’ You can say it just as good.”
Which Bob Dylan books would you add/delete?
PEAK BOB DYLAN: 1963-78? OR 1991-2024? OR SOME OTHER PERIOD?
Two recent heavyweight Dylan books, by Ron Rosenbaum and Robert Polito - both highly recommended - have different opinions on when Dylan was producing his best work.
Like many Boomer fans, Rosenbaum much prefers earlier Dylan - “His work became a kind of dark kaleidoscopic lens through which I viewed the world and related to people - those who got it and those who did not.”
But he regards “Late Dylan” (ie after Street-Legal) as generally low grade, albeit leavened by a handful of masterpiece songs.
Polito differs - he regards Dylan’s 1991-2024 work as “his most ambitious and accomplished”, powered by “fierceness of empathy and memory”, praising Dylan”s use of collage.
“Love And Theft” is “Everywhere contingent on race, minstrelsy and the Civil War, Dylan’s subject is nothing less than the history of American popular music”.
When do you think Dylan was creating his best work?