4.0 out of 5 based on 3 reviews. – Customer review on 19/04/2007

Bob Dylan has to be one of the greatest songwriters off all time with classics like "Blowin in the wind" and "All Along The Watchtower". His music inspired a generation and still carries on strong in this generation. He has a fascinating life and this book is a great read. A must have for any Bob Dylan or folk music fans

5.0 out of 5 based on 3 reviews. – Customer review on 26/08/2006

Being an avid student of all things Bob, I leapt at the chance to read about his own take on his amazing life. What surprised me is how straight-talking his writing is. Is this the same guy who wrote 'Tarantula'? Well, Dylan's never done the same thing twice, so perhaps his writing is is no surprise at all. Of particular interest are his accounts of his early days in the Village, moving to New York and working towards getting his voice heard. He also writes about his 'New Morning' and 'Oh Mercy' albums, which have had a lot less said about than his earlier records. How lucky we are to get all of this stuff about Dylan's life from the man himself. There's been a lot written about him in the past - how much of that can we trust, given that Dylan not only guarded his privacy quite closely but also added to the myth-making himself? His own account in 'Chronicles' rings true. And so what if it isn't. Who is 'Bob Dylan' anyway? Well, he wrote this book, and you should read it.

5.0 out of 5 based on 3 reviews. – Customer review on 04/05/2006

This has got to be one of the best autobiographies released in the past decade. Bob Dylan master songwriter, word magician and bower bird does a non-linear time trip through various phases of his life describing his influences, motivations and a young and hopeful America and a time and place which is sadly gone. But Bob doesn't wax lyrical about the sixties like other baby boomers in the media do, he notes the conformity in rebellion and the pressures for him to keep on protest writing.

Calling all Bobcats this is the book you want, it has Bob's own description of his escape from the stultifying iron belt small town of Hibbing to New York in a freezing cross country drive - the description brings you back to Kerouac's On the Road, it talks about his early days in Greenwich Village, his signing to Columbia Records by John Hammond and then flashes forth to his New Morning and Oh Mercy periods. It follows his thoughts about the creative slump he fell into in the 1980s and the price he pays for fame. But Chronicles is not a heavy read, it has good stories and anecdotes of various people Bob meets on the way.

What is perhaps most interesting is that Bob talks about his craft, of his days spent in the public library and friends bookshelves reading, absorbing an eclectic range of literature from Thuycides, Tacitus, Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, Walter Scott to old civil newspaper clippings from the 1800s. Bob also talks about the range of music he listened to, the lack of prejudice from Appalachian ballads, Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams and obscure folk musicians such as Bascom Lamar Lunsford to Ricky Nelson and Judy Garland, Bob listened to them all. It is refreshing to hear such a collector and bowerbird in a time where music and literature are so genred, pared and segmented. Bob took an education in culture through this reading that laid the groundwork for his songs.

For people who have had a bad experience with Tarantula which frankly was rubbish, don't be turned off. Read this book - this is Bob in vintage form, poetic, enigmatic, searching and making you think.

You are not going to get lurid confessions in this book, Bob tells you nothing at all about his personal life, indeed sometimes you are not sure what wife he is talking about. But sometimes you don't need that in an autobiography, what Bob tells in this memoir are his artistic thoughts and feelings and the things he remembers from the past. Memory and what one remembers and chooses to push into the spotlight and to leave behind tells you a lot about a person.

It is not certain whether the tthings Bob tells you are correct, his history of fictionalising parts of his life means that you take most things with a grain of salt. However, it doesn't matter with this book because that's not what this book is about. Chronicles is what Bob sees as important in his career and wants us to consider.