Put simply, I've yet to a read a better memoir. If you're a fan, this is a must; if you're not a fan, this may well be the magic that converts you.

To be taken with a pinch of salt? Sure, but that's part of Dylan's appeal. This is a fantastically written and mesmerizing insight into the great man's mind that cannot be beaten. Oh how I wish Volume 2 (& more) would hurry up. I'll have to make do with relistening to the entire run of Theme Time Radio Hour for my Bob rant fix.

There is a charming naivety in parts of the book particularly when Dylan is talking about the books he was reading in other peoples apartments when he first came to New York in the early 60s. He lists loads of authors he’s scanned and gives thumbnail descriptions of them assuming, innocently that his readers haven’t read them. Anyway this gives you an idea how he wrote his songs by name dropping people and things that he only passed by. Consequently intellectual discussion of his more obscure work is as he admits a fairly futile exercise. Mostly his lyrics are just a stream of fascinating but vacuous consciousnesses. His stories of course are another thing- Evelyn Waugh-like in their economy and deftness. Luckily his writing style is not vague and obscure and there are some coherent insights into his early life. In interviews he has always given a colourful and fictional accounts of his life but here, I think, the truth emerges and he can be surprisingly self-deprecating. There is, however, a sudden change of tempo half way through the book when he navel gazes at the changes in his voice and guitar style which becomes rather tedious. More interesting though is his in depth analysis of the making of “Oh Mercy” , not one of his great albums but a lot better than the previous two and made with the legendary Daniel Lanois. This was clearly an ordeal even traumatic for both men though Dylan seemed at times to have been bullied by the man "in the long black coat." Lanois was looking for great songs like masters of war etc but Dylan admitted he could not provide them as things weren't the same Dylan’s partial dissatisfaction of this “archaic” (his words) album led him to re-do all the vocals at a later date. He must have got sick of those relentless reverberations! They don’t date well but weirdly 10 years later Lanois produced Dylan’s Time out of Mind though we don’t get to hear how that went. The book finishes as it started in the music publishers office following some interesting discussion with Dylan’s new manager, the predatory Albert Grossman. I hope Bob is writing volume 2.