Acclaimed cultural critic Greil Marcus tells the story of Bob Dylan through the lens of seven penetrating songs   “The most interesting writer on Dylan over the years has been the cultural critic Greil Marcus. . . . No one alive knows the music that fueled Dylan’s imagination better. . . . Folk Music . . . [is an] ingenious book of close listening.”—David Remnick, New Yorker   Named a Best Music Book of 2022 by Rolling Stone   “Further elevates Marcus to what he has always been: a supreme artist-critic.”—Hilton Als   Across seven decades, Bob Dylan has been the first singer of American song. As a writer and performer, he has rewritten the national songbook in a way that comes from his own vision and yet can feel as if it belongs to anyone who might listen.   In Folk Music , Greil Marcus tells Dylan’s story through seven of his most transformative songs. Marcus’s point of departure is Dylan’s ability to “see myself in others.” Like Dylan’s songs, this book is a work of implicit patriotism and creative skepticism. It illuminates Dylan’s continuing presence and relevance through his empathy—his imaginative identification with other people. This is not only a deeply felt telling of the life and times of Bob Dylan but a rich history of American folk songs and the new life they were given as Dylan sat down to write his own. “The most interesting writer on Dylan over the years has been the cultural critic Greil Marcus. . . . No one alive knows the music that fueled Dylan’s imagination better. Marcus just published Folk Music: A Bob Dylan Biography in Seven Songs . It’s [an] ingenious book of close listening.”—David Remnick, New Yorker “A poignant reminder of everything Trumpism had tried to destroy. His dissections of these songs . . . are thorough and well-referenced.” —Paul Genders, Times Literary Supplement “A book filled with genuine insights. . . . ‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’ the anthem that transformed a little-known folk singer into the conscience of a nation, is exhibit A for Mr. Marcus’s theory of empathy. . . . Mr. Marcus is at his best in exploring this rootedness.”— The Economist “Marcus . . . has written more and better about Dylan than just about anyone, most recently in Folk Music .”—Carl Wilson, Slate “Marcus keeps chasing America’s greatest songwriter down the highway. It’s cultural criticism as a long-running detective story—and a musical love story.”—Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone , “Best Music Books of 2022” “The book’s openness restores a sense of existential unity, of a whole in which everything has a place and plays a part.”—Devin McKinney, Critics at Large “A perfect storm of things to love: American history, music history, Dylan’s music and beautiful writing. The style is colloquial, but not informal; informative but not didactic, and downright seductive to follow. . . . His in-depth analysis of the songs themselves is unmatched.”—Anne Margaret Daniel, Spectator Featured in Globe and Mail ’s “Best Books to Gift This Year” “Marcus tends to a hyperbolic style, producing a slightly febrile mood, appropriate to the events being related. He also uncovers, or produces, hidden connections between apparently disparate things.”—David McCooey, New Daily “Marcus’ profound expertise in the American cultural landscape blasts open new fissures in our understanding of this most mythologised of singer-songwriters. . . . The reader comes away marvelling at what Bob Dylan has done with such a violent cultural inheritance, and also at how enmeshed the beauty of the songs are with the brutality in life.”—Gregory Day, Sydney Morning Herald “In elaborating Dylan’s musical journey Marcus puts on display a vast knowledge of America’s popular culture and a sardonic recognition of the flaws in our national character—flaws such as racial injustice and wealth inequality that folk music tries to address. The book is fast-paced, like a song, and hip. . . . [Marcus] closes on an elegiac note punctuated with love. ‘What will go out of the world with him?’”—Arthur Hoyle, New York Journal of Books “Rollicking. . . . Marcus’s close readings are full of discursive, meandering asides, and his prose is full of flourish. . . . Dylan’s fans will enjoy these lyrical reflections.”— Publishers Weekly “Splendid biographical essays on that most elusive of subjects, the shape-shifter once known as Bobby Zimmerman. . . . Marcus delivers yet another essential work of music journalism.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Reading one of these essays is a little bit like listening to Dylan’s own winding narrative lyricism. The author draws upon the same pop art approach as Dylan himself, merging imagery from popular and mass culture into fine art sensibilities. . . . An informative, if impressionistic, reflection.”—Gregory Stall, Library Journal Named by Kirkus Reviews to its list of “7 Enlightening Nonfiction Books to Read this Fall” “As always with Marcus, his work is mesmerizing. . .