The Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 2: 1966-2021
  • Published: 15 December 2023
  • ISBN: 9781847925893
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 720
  • RRP: $85.00

The Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 2: 1966-2021

‘Far away from Myself’

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
1 Oct 2024
Hardback
15 Dec 2023
EBook
28 Sep 2023
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The second instalment of the definitive biography of one contemporary culture's most iconic and mysterious figures, taking us from Dylan's 1960s heyday to his 80th birthday

The second volume of Clinton Heylin's magisterial biography takes us from Dylan's 1966 motorcycle accident to the present day. We meet a man who is determined to confound expectations; yet whatever he does only seems to confirm his iconic status to fans and critics alike.

There are peaks and troughs. Long periods of writer's block are followed by sudden bursts of creativity that produce some of the best work of his career, including perhaps his most celebrated album, 1975's Blood On The Tracks. There is the unpredictable recording process, with Dylan often including on his albums the worst takes and leaving off the best songs altogether. On the Neverending Tour he reinvents his songbook on a nightly basis, at times without recognition. Then there are the albums and songs that reveal the genius of an artist whose lyrics draw on centuries of American culture but who refuses to be shackled to his own past.

Today his voice is almost unrecognisable from his 1960s peak, and the man whose songs had been devoted to dissecting his romantic relationships has become focused on mortality, solitude and getting old. Yet his albums continue to top the charts, 2020's Rough And Rowdy Ways being his fourth No. 1 album of the twenty-first century.

There is no other living artist whose creative output has remained constantly intriguing, often baffling, sometimes infuriating but always fascinating for over sixty years. Clinton Heylin's definitive, scrupulously researched and revelatory life, based on unprecedented access to the official Tulsa archive and other new sources, paints the fullest and brightest portrait yet of an iconic figure that has defined contemporary culture.
  • Published: 15 December 2023
  • ISBN: 9781847925893
  • Imprint: Bodley Head
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 720
  • RRP: $85.00
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Praise for The Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 2: 1966-2021

The definitive, scrupulously researched biography of a life steeped in mystery

Oberver on The Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 1

Gripping... hugely impressive

The Times, Book of the Week, on The Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 1

Clinton Heylin is the éminence grise of Dylan scholars

Andrew Motion, Spectator, on The Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 1

Painstakingly detailed... informative and well organised

Financial Times on The Double Life of Bob Dylan Volume 1

I can’t imagine anyone else poking, prodding and taking apart Dylan with as much forensic detail as Heylin has done here

The Times

Heylin is the most dedicated and forensic Dylanologists, and this book shows it

Daily Telegraph

Remarkable… This is not just another Bob Dylan book… it’s so all-encompassing that it is probably the last word

i

For Dylan completists this monumental fact-check will be essential

New Statesman

No true Dylan fan will want to miss what is as close to a definitive biography as we're likely to get of an artist who has easy definition

Daily Mail