An “unabridged audibook” edition of Bob Dylan‘s Chronicles: Volume One will be released alongside a collection of paintings from the legendary artist.
Simon & Schuster has confirmed a newly recorded edition of the Chronicles: Volume One audiobook, narrated by Sean Penn, is on the way. The new edition will run at twice the length of the first, with Dylan’s autobiography extended to a ten-hour audiobook, The New York Post reported. A release date for Chronicles: Volume Two has not been set, despite Penn suggesting he was getting to work on recording the audiobook for that project. In an interview with Louis Theroux, Penn claimed he was back in the studio to provide his voice to a second entry to the Chronicles series, but that project may have been an extended edition of Chronicles: Volume One.
Dylan’s acclaimed recollection of career memories was released on October 5, 2004. The book documented his rise to fame in New York, and the recording of lesser-known albums New Morning and Oh Mercy. Dylan suggested the book was not entirely accurate and that his approach to writing was “novelistic” in nature.
Cult Following previously confirmed Penn was involved in the audiobook process, name-dropping Chronicles II in an interview with Louis Theroux. The documentarian asked Penn: “Speaking as the voice of Bob Dylan, because you read his audiobook, didn’t you?”
Penn replied: “Yeah, I think I’m about to do the second one, actually. Yeah, Chronicles II. I think it [Chronicles] is terrific.” Though it could have been a slip of the tongue from Penn, who may have meant the re-recording of Chronicles: Volume One, fans are still hopeful for an official release date for the follow-up book.
Dylan himself has suggested the book has been written, though his last comments on the project come from 2012. He said at the time: “It would definitely start with records. I stumbled into a strategy of going into the future and into the past…
“The whole early part of the first Chronicles was supposed to be based on some old record – maybe Another Side of Bob Dylan … Someplace in the 1960s. I was going to use that [record] and then I could go into the future.
“Well, what happened was that I … kind of just stayed there, and didn’t really go into the future. When I started writing about the early days in New York, I found it all extremely interesting. When you start doing that, it amazes you what you uncover without even trying.”
Simon & Schuster will later this year publish drawings from Dylan in an art book, Point Blank (Quick Studies), a compilation of nearly a hundred black-and-white drawings created in 2021 and 2022. It follows Dylan’s 2022 book, The Philosophy of Modern Song.
No official announcement for Chronicles II has been made by Dylan’s team.
