Bob Dylan: Winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature
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The legendary Bob Dylan is the winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." Dylan is the first musician to win this illustrious prize — and it came as a surprise to many. Read the coverage in The New York Times, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The Toronto Star and The New Yorker. A departure from the pattern of previous prize winners, social media is ablaze with both outrage and approval. Should the choice have been a complete unknown? I think the Swedish Academy's choice was brilliant. Leonard Cohen in 2017?
Growing up with Dylan on my dad's turntable, I read Dylan's songs as much as I listened to them. If you haven't heard Dylan before, or you want to bring it all back home again, here are some of his early works available on CD at the Toronto Public Library:
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- Bob Dylan (1962)
- The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963)
- The Times They Are A-Changin (1964)
- Bringing it All Back Home Again (1965)
- Highway 61 Revisited (1965)
- Blonde on Blonde (1966)
- Nashville Skyline (1969)
- Blood on the Tracks (1975) There is some Toronto history about this album cover.
Despite Dylan's mercurial changeability and resolute inscrutability, there is no shortage of material written about his life and his work — catalogued, dissected, analyzed and mythologized. And sometimes, fabricated. Here is a selection of books available from Toronto Public Library.
The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia by Michael Gray
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Bob Dylan: All the Songs – The Story Behind Every Track by Philippe Margotin
Dylan Goes Electric: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald
No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan by Robert Shelton
Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews by Jonathan Cott
***Updated***
And speaking of fabricated, one reader reminded me of Dylan's own "misrememoir":
Chronicles Volume 1 by Bob Dylan
Also available in
Talking Book on CD (restricted to print disabled patrons)
Some great material available on DVD:
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No Direction Home: Bob Dylan directed by Martin Scorcese
Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back directed by D.A. Pennebaker
I'm Not There directed by Todd Haynes
Bob Dylan: American Troubadour directed by Stephen Crisman
3 thoughts on “Bob Dylan: Winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature”
endlessly awesome songwriter, E
wait, you’ve gotta add his book, Chronicles (volume 1) here. it’s a fun twisted unfactcheckable misrememoir,
Thanks, Sean – good catch. I’ve added Chronicles – how could I forget 🙂