On October 13, 2016, it was announced that Bob Dylan had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, recognizing his countless contributions to music and letters over the last fifty years. Some months later, he delivered a lecture that will now be available in book form for generations to come. In it, he reflects on his life and experience with literature, giving readers a rare and intimate look at an American icon. From being inspired by Buddy Holly to the novels that helped shape his own approach to writing (The Odyssey, Moby Dick, and All Quiet on the Western Front), this is Dylan like you've never seen him before.

A brilliantly written and groundbreaking book about Dylan's music - now the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2016 - and its musical, political and cultural roots in early 20th-century America Growing up in Greenwich Village in the 1960s Sean Wilentz discovered the music of Bob Dylan as a young teenager. Almost half a century later, now a distinguished professor of American history, he revisits Dylan's work with the critical skills of a scholar and the passion of a fan. Drawing partly on his work as the current historian-in-residence on Dylan's official website, Sean Wilentz provides a unique blend of biography, memoir and analysis in a book which, much like its subject, shifts gears and changes shape as the occasion demands.