Dylan books
From the sheaves of big ideas and distorted facts, an essential Bobliography. Introduced by Danny Eccleston.
“Fans, critics, academics, trashrats and former amours wrestle with this most fascinating of artists.”
“‘SO… UH… the High Holy Days are over,’ Bob announces, as we wrestle ardently on his bed. I’m awash in his sensuality. His eyes embrace me… His earring softly strokes the skin on my cheek…”
If you’re of the opinion that where Bob Dylan is concerned there’s no such thing as Too Much Information, maybe you haven’t read backing singer Britta Lee Shain’s Seeing The Real You At Last, “awash” as it is in similarly ripe detail of their ’80s affair
– less Behind The Shades; more 50 Shades Of Bob.
That said, Shain’s startling memoir is not a great deal more ‘specialist’ than much of the extraordinary quantity of print lavished on Dylan as successive generations of fans, critics, biographers, academics, trashrats and former amours wrestle ardently with this most fascinating, confounding and culturally significant of artists. This month, MOJO’s writers and readers have selected the 10 ‘best’ books to emerge from the mêlée. The list comprises a mixture of favourites and landmark works encompassing straight biog, antic memoir, exploratory compendia, serious cultural history, sui generis intellectual adventure, and even a book by Dylan himself (but relax, it’s not Revisionist Art, his rum
2013 collection of deep-fake magazine covers – which introduced initiates to his Sharon Stone obsession). Where appropriate, we’ve tried to flag up our preferred editions.
Given the vast and ever-expanding field – where recent entrants have included Why Dylan Matters, a Mary Beard-endorsed study of Dylan’s interaction with the Greats of Classical Literature; plus a book of essays, The World Of Bob Dylan, starring a brilliant Ann Powers piece on Dylan’s physicality (Britta Lee Shain would have views) – think of it as a place to start rather than The 10 Commandments. For Dylanology is a rabbit hole where the side-tunnels are often as seductive as the main drag. And getting stuck is half the fun. Contributions: John Mulvey, Bill Prince, David Sheppard, Michael Simmons, Sylvie Simmons, Mat Snow.