Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan's life in music is revisited by his foremost interpreter -- weaving individual moods and moments into a brilliant history of their changing times.The book begins in Berkeley in 1968, and ends with a piece on Dylan's show at the University of Minnesota -- his very first appearance at his alma mater -- on election night 2008. In between are moments of euphoric discovery: From Marcus's liner notes for the 1967 Basement Tapes (pop music's m...

Stanley Booth, a member of the Rolling Stones' inner circle, met the band just a few months before Brian Jones drowned in a swimming pool in 1968. He lived with them throughout their 1969 tour across the United States, staying up all night together listening to blues, talking about music, ingesting drugs, and consorting with groupies. His thrilling account culminates with their final concert at Altamont Speedway—a nightmare of beating, stabbing, and killing that would signal the end of a g...

The legendary critic and author of Mystery Train "ingeniously retells the tale of rock and roll" ( Publishers Weekly, starred review).Unlike previous versions of rock 'n' roll history, this book omits almost every iconic performer and ignores the storied events and turning points everyone knows. Instead, in a daring stroke, Greil Marcus selects ten songs and dramatizes how each embodies rock 'n' roll as a thing in itself, in the story it tells, in...

The first illustrated history of rockabilly music from the 1950s to the twenty-first century.It was the twang heard 'round the world: Rockabilly was born out of country, bluegrass, jazz, and the blues in the 1950s, becoming rock 'n' roll and ruling the world. Here's the story of Elvis Presley's first Sun records that inspired all. And here's Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, and many more rockabillies from the gol...

An "astute, challenging, and far-reaching" look (Kirkus Reviews, starred) at how F. Scott Fitzgerald's vision of the American Dream has been understood, portrayed, distorted, misused, and kept alive"Now more than ever, we need to think long and hard about our collective national fantasies. There's no one better suited to this task than Greil Marcus."—David Treuer, author of The Heartbeat of Wounded KneeRenowned critic Greil Marcus takes on the fascinating legacy of F. Scott F...

A Beat-era novel of heroin addiction in 1950s New York City that was called "a treasure" by Ken Kesey.This is the journal of Joe Necchi, a junkie living on a barge that plies the rivers and bays of New York. Joe's world is the half-world of drugs and addicts—the world of furtive fixes in sordid Harlem apartments, of police pursuits down deserted subway stations. Junk for Necchi, however, is a tool, freely chosen and fully justified; he is Cain, the malcontent, the ...

Acclaimed cultural critic Greil Marcus tells the story of Bob Dylan through the lens of seven penetrating songs"Marcus delivers yet another essential work of music journalism."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"Further elevates Marcus to what he has always been: a supreme artist-critic."—Hilton Als"Greil Marcus is already the most important chronicler of Dylan. But here he outdoes himself."—Rachel KushnerAcross seven decades, Bob Dylan has been the first singer of...

Greil Marcus saw Bob Dylan for the first time in a New Jersey field in 1963. He didn't know the name of the scruffy singer who had a bit part in a Joan Baez concert, but he knew his performance was unique. So began a dedicated and enduring relationship between America's finest critic of popular music -- "simply peerless," in Nick Hornby's words, "not only as a rock writer but as a cultural historian" -- and Bob Dylan. In Like A Rolling Stone Marcus locates Dylan's six-minute mast...

A 50th anniversary edition of the music classic, with fully updated discographies and new introductions from Greil Marcus and Dwight GarnerIn this special 50th anniversary edition of the beloved Plume backlist staple first released in 1975, Mystery Train's complex analysis of the relationship between rock 'n' roll music and America is given new life with updated discographies and new introductions by Greil Marcus and Dwight Garner.Rather than provi...

"It may be the most sophisticated political thriller ever made in Hollywood," film critic Pauline Kael wrote of John Frankenheimer's terrifying 1962 political thriller about an American serviceman brainwashed in Korea and made into an assassin. Sophisticated to be sure, it's also a headlong fall through the looking-glass of American politics and the most deeply prophetic film of the second half of the American century. As Greil Marcus reconstructs the drama, The Manchurian Candidate

**From a celebrated critic, a heartfelt and adventurous reflection on the art of writing about art“Essential for fans of Marcus and fruitful reading for anyone reflecting on the mysteries of art.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)**“Writers write. They can’t help it. They can’t not.” In this spirited book, the revered cultural critic Greil Marcus explains his compulsion as a yearning for fun, for play, and, most of all, to discover—to feel the moment when a creation ...

For nearly thirty years, Greil Marcus has written a remarkable column called “Real Life Rock Top Ten.” It has been a laboratory where he has fearlessly explored and wittily dissected an enormous variety of cultural artifacts, from songs to books to movies to advertisements. Taken together, his musings, reflections, and sallies amount to a subtle and implicit theory of how cultural objects fall through time and circumstance and often deliver unintended consequences, both in the present an...