Dylan might miss book award event
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NEW YORK — Bob Dylan, whose memoir “Chronicles, Vol. I” is nominated for a National Book Critics Circle prize, will probably be too busy with his day job to attend the March 18 ceremony.
“Bob Dylan is honored by the NBCC nomination; however, he’ll be on a concert tour in March,” Simon & Schuster spokeswoman Victoria Meyer said Tuesday. Meyer added that the publisher would “work with his office to see if there’s any way he can come to the NBCC ceremony.”
“Chronicles” was nominated Saturday in the biography/autobiography category, with other finalists including Ron Chernow’s “Alexander Hamilton” and a biography of Shakespeare, Stephen Greenblatt’s “Will in the World.”
Virtually all literary efforts by rock stars, from the Kinks’ Ray Davies to the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, are laughed off by critics, but Dylan has been praised for an unusually rich and engaging book, writing passionately about influences such as Woody Guthrie and Robert Johnson and recalling his years as a young singer-songwriter in New York’s Greenwich Village.
Dylan’s book, published last fall, also has enjoyed commercial success.
Two more volumes are planned.
The National Book Critics Circle is a not-for-profit organization of about 600 book editors and critics.
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