Bob Dylan’s favourite books by musicians: “Writes like the whirlwind”
The life and works of Bob Dylan are well documented, and with a new biopic on the horizon starring none other than the pouty Timothée Chalamet as Dylan, we will soon get a little more colour. Aside from the enormous body of music he has created, the prolific songwriter and all-round American icon has also published 17 books, nine of which showcase his art and three of his lyrics.
Among the pages of his own books, Dylan often refers to his passion for reading and the authors and stories that have inspired him. In Chronicles: Volume One, he lists several books that had caught his eye but which he had not yet read, such as The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert, and Simón Bolívar’s biography titled A Life.
“I wanted to read all these books, but I would have to have been in a rest home or something to do that,” he states. It speaks to the icon’s willingness to learn and immerse himself in the world of music.
Dylan’s love of literature has also been the subject of countless interviews over the years, during which he has mentioned a long list of authors and books. It’s of no surprise that some books that made the list were written by other musicians, such as Woody Guthrie, whose gripping autobiography Bound for Glory was praised by Dylan. He recalls the moment his friend and radio host ‘Diamond’ Dave Whitaker gave him the book, saying: “I went through it from cover to cover like a hurricane, totally focused on every word, and the book sang out to me like the radio.”
For Dylan, there was nobody better: “Guthrie writes like the whirlwind and you get tripped out on the sound of the words along. Pick up the book anywhere, turn to any page and he hits the ground running. ‘Bound for Glory’ is a hell of a book.”
Other books of interest listed by Dylan include those written by ethnomusicologist, singer and guitarist Alan Lomax. He is credited with carrying out a huge collection of field recordings in which he attempted to document American folk music. In September 1940, Lomax interviewed Woody Guthrie where he spoke about growing up in Oklahoma and the difficulties of surviving in the dust bowl.
Most of the eight books listed below can also be found on the official Bob Dylan website under the heading ‘Books of Interest’, sitting alongside a collection of classics that were also a source of inspiration for Dylan, like Jack Kerouac’s On The Road and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.
Bob Dylan’s favourite books by musicians:
- Mister Jelly Roll: The Fortunes of Jelly Roll Morton, New Orleans Creole and “Inventor of Jazz”‘ by Alan Lomax
- The Land Where the Blues Began by Alan Lomax
- Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards by Al Kooper
- Honkers and Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues by Arnold Shaw
- The Dave Stewart Songbook: The Stories Behind The Songs by Dave Stewart
- Jerry Garcia: The Collected Artwork by Jerry Garcia
- Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta by Robert Palmer
- Bound for Glory by Woody Guthrie
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