AFTER FOUR DECADES OF cantankerous, monosyllabic interviews and one legendarily impenetrable novel Tarantula, fans feared what Dylan's self-penned Chronicles would be like.

What a relief. This slim autobiography is a joy. Rather than plodding through a life story from beginning to end, Dylan zooms in on significant episodes. It's unconventional but beautifully and forcefully told. He starts in 1961 with his arrival in New York, aged 20, where he stayed on friends' sofas and played the folk clubs of Manhattan.

The next part skips his phenomenal success and deals only with the horror of fame.

The final part goes back to New York, sets out his musical influences, the joy of first love with Suze Rotolo, and ends with his first recordings.

This a poet at work. It is his life on his own terms - no photographs, no introducing his wife and five children, no mention of the convulsions when he went electric with The Band, hardly a word about his greatest songs. Still, this is only Volume One.

Chronicles Volume One by Bob Dylan is published by Simon & Schuster priced £16.99.