Bob Dylan's Reading List

"I didn’t know who I was before I read the Barger book."

"Dylan has stated that “Clausewitz in some ways is a prophet” and his writing can make you “take your own thoughts a little less seriously."

"Conrad is featured in the artwork for “Desire” and it’s thought that his novel Victory was an inspiration for “Black Diamond Bay."

"Foreword by Dylan."

"Allen doesn’t have to sing ‘Kaddish,’ man. You understand what I mean? He just has to lay it down. He’s the only poet that I know of. I can’t really tell you all my feelings of him because they are just too total. He’s the only person I respect who writes, that just totally writes. He don’t have to do nothing, man. Allen Ginsberg, he’s just holy."

"I got a friend who wrote a book, it’s called ‘One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding,’ it’s about this straight-A college kid, fraternity guy, and a 14-year-old negro prostitute, and it’s got two dialogues in the same book. One chapter is what he’s doing and what he does, and the next chapter is her view of him. It actually comes out and states something that’s actually true… This guy who wrote it, you can’t label him. He’s unlabelable."

"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. 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."

"Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul in 1959. It blew my mind."

"On the Road speeds by like a freight train. It’s all movement and words and lusty instincts that come alive like you’re riding on a train. Kerouac moves so fast with his words. No ambiguity. It was very emblematic of the time. You grabbed a hold of the train, hopped on and went along with him, hanging on for dear life."

"A soulful story woven together from Dylan’s back catalogue."

"I think he’s the greatest American writer."

"All Quiet on the Western Front is a horror story. This is a book where you lose your childhood, your faith in a meaningful world, and your concern for individuals. You’re stuck in a nightmare. Sucked up into a mysterious whirlpool of death and pain. You’re defending yourself from elimination. You’re being wiped off the face of the map. Once upon a time you were an innocent youth with big dreams about being a concert pianist. Once you loved life and the world, and now you’re shooting it to pie..."

"When I read [Rimbaud’s ‘I is someone else’] the bells went off. It made perfect sense. I wished someone would have mentioned that to me earlier."

"In high school, Dylan wrote a 22-page essay on the book, to which his teacher gave a “B."

"Foreword by Dylan."

"A narrative which would give you the chills. It was written four hundred years before Christ and it talks about how human nature is always the enemy of anything superior. Thucydides writes about how words in his time have changed from their ordinary meaning, how actions and opinions can be altered in the blink of an eye. It’s like nothing has changed from his time to mine."