David Yaffe is assistant professor of English at Syracuse University and the author of Fascinating Rhythm: Reading Jazz in American Writing. He is a music critic for the Nation and has written articles for the Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan, the New York Times, Bookforum, New York Magazine, Slate, The New Republic, The Village Voice, and other publications.

"Exhilarating reading....One finishes the book not with a diminished, but rather a much augmented and far more nuanced appreciation of Dylan's lifework....The voice is lively, witty, colloquial, endlessly comfortable....Dylan studies now bulks rather large; Yaffe's book promises to whip the field into a kind of shape."--Kevin J. H. Dettmar, Pomona College, editor of "The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan"
--Kevin J.H. Dettmar (11/10/2010)

"Steeped but not drowned in cultural studies, David Yaffe offers fresh and sometimes prickly insight about Bob Dylan''s art. Yaffe reads closely and listens hard, and his book will have you saying, ''aha!'' again and again."--Sean Wilentz, Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor of History, Princeton University, and author of "Bob Dylan in America"

--Sean Wilentz (11/30/2010)

"David Yaffe is to Bob Dylan what Andrew Delbanco is to Herman Melville and what Farah Jasmine Griffin is to Billie Holiday--a writer whose authority is so vast and whose thinking is so fresh that he makes reading about his long-familiar subject an act of discovery."--David Hajdu, Columbia University; author of "Positively 4th Street"--David Hajdu (12/13/2010)

"Writing with deep respect and affection for his subject, David Yaffe gives us an exhilarating tour of Bob Dylan''s astonishing career. This book sings."--Brian Morton, author of "Starting Out in the Evening"

--Brian Morton (08/27/2010)

"With a keen ear for Dylan''s musical influences, vocal changes, and literary borrowings, David Yaffe captures the dramatic twists and turns of Dylan''s creative life, especially his chamelon-like shifts of identity, his protean elusiveness."--Morris Dickstein, author "Gates of Eden" and "Dancing in the Dark"--Morris Dickstein (08/20/2010)

"Mr. Yaffe has excellent chapters . . . approaching at times the intensity of prose poetry."--David Yezzi, "The Wall Street Journal"--David Yezzi "The Wall Street Journal "

." . . fun, funny, learned as hell as well as plain smart, and subjective in the best possible sense."--Guy Crucianelli, "PopMatters"--Guy Crucianelli "PopMatters "

Publisher: Yale University Press

Pub date: 2012-06-19

Length: 192 pages