I'll intend also keeping this review brief, as 'Dylan' by Steve Matteo has already been mentioned by myself in the last newsletter, and has also been reviewed in full by Ian Woodward in ISIS 83. In addition, while this book has been slow to emerge in the UK it has been around in the States for a while. I should stress that the problem here has not been with the publisher Metro Books, but with the US wholesaler.

Firstly, you may be asking who is Steve Matteo. Well, I didn't know either. However, the book's jacket reveals that; "Matteo has been writing about music for more than twenty years and has contributed to such publications as New York magazine, Rolling Stone, Spin, Newsday, Elle, and others". Currently, Matteo is the music and editorial director of FM Odyssey.

Weighing in at a hefty 11½" x 11½" (29cm x 29cm), almost the size of a vinyl record sleeve, if anyone can remember those? The book begins with a very brief (slightly over 200-word) foreword by Judy Collins, if anyone can remember her? The books strongest asset is without doubt its photographs and while many of these photos are very familiar, some are new, and all are beautifully reproduced here.

Largely the text is an overview of Dylan's life and career and is often set nicely against an historical backdrop. My initial feeling was that whilst Matteo's book would make a particularly nice purchase for the more casual Dylan fan, the more serious Dylan watcher may find it a little abridged. Over the past weeks however, I have talked with several people that already have this book and everyone has been pleasantly surprised, not only by the photographs, but also by the text. Even so, Emmy award-winning TV writer Joe Fallon whose blurb makes it onto the book's rear jacket might be a tad over the top when he says; "Another book on Bob Dylan will not be necessary". With imaginative writing like that, Fallon should be in line for an Oscar to accompany that Emmy.

See 'My Back Pages' ad elsewhere in this issue.