{"title":"Toby Thompson","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"riding-the-rough-string-book-toby-thompson-9780982860168","title":"Riding the Rough String","description":"\u003cp\u003eProfiles, meditations, essays, and explorations.For more than forty years, Toby Thompson has been considering what it means to live and work in the American West. And now, with Riding the Rough String, a lifetime's worth of accomplishment is roped together under one cover. His wide-ranging curiosity considers not only our most luminous literary figures (Gary Snyder to Gretel Ehrlich, Thomas McGuane to Hunter Thompson) but the region's history and culture as well. Saloons and art, pickups and A River Runs Through It, Thompson shows us the West through a new lens: unique, clear-eyed, essential. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mountains and rivers, the high plains and the good Montana people (and the funny and the not so good or funny)--the dead-on info, the stories, that's the main thing, the stories)--Toby Thompson has it right. Riding the Rough String is a fine sport and an all-day pleasure.\u003cbr\u003e William Kittredge author of Hole in the Sky \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eToby Thompson knows Montana's bars, books, bridges, and backcountry. I'll read anything he writes.\u003cbr\u003e Tim Cahill author of Hold the Enlightenment \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike the rest of the gang, Toby Thompson played it smart and went west. His sharp eye and interviewer's ear caught every nuance. Riding the Rough String sets it all down with verve and assurance. \u003cbr\u003e William Hjortsberg author of Jubilee Hitchhiker \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eToby Thompson is a writer and journalist of the old school, a standup guy who knows music and literature and walks the walk and understands the human heart. I'm honored to be included in his work.\u003cbr\u003e James Lee Burke author of Creole Belle\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49595551449361,"sku":"GOR013204934","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50370111045905,"sku":"CIN0982860161A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51010337833233,"sku":"NIN9780982860168","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52723452903697,"sku":"CIN0982860161G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0982860161.jpg?v=1751172165"},{"product_id":"positively-main-street-book-toby-thompson-9780816654451","title":"Positively Main Street","description":"“That boy . . . this fellow, Toby . . . has got some lessons to learn.” -Bob Dylan, Rolling Stone, November 29, 1969  \"Toby Thompson was there first.\" -Greil Marcus  “A first-rate novelistic account of Thompson’s own psyche as he uncovers the Dylan few people know . . . A new look at young Dylan done with kindness, enthusiasm and superb language.” -William Kennedy, Look Magazine   “Essential reading. Thompson, unprecedentedly, managed to interview not only Echo Helstrom, almost certainly the ‘Girl of the North Country,’ but Dylan’s mother and brother, his uncle, his friends.” -Michael Gray, Bob Dylan Encyclopedia  “Dylan fans will not want to miss this book.” -Sioux City Journal  “Enough to satisfy any Dylan fan with all the gossip he’ll ever need.” -Huntsville Times  “Well worth the attention of anyone who has fallen under the spell of the boy from the North Country.” -Los Angeles Times  “It’s a must.” -Ft. Worth Press  \"Thompson tracked down anybody who knew 'Die-lan' (as the Hibbingites called him), including the guy at the local music store, the guy at the motorcycle shop, his English and music teachers, his uncles, his brother David and even his reluctant but ultimately charmingly chatty mother. Of course, Thompson traveled into a few dead ends. But the stuff with Dylan's mom and his high school girlfriend, Echo Helstrom, is priceless. Positively Main Street is a free-wheelin', fun and quick read that is surprisingly informative.\" -Minneapolis Star Tribune  \"Hundreds of books have been written about Minnesota's most famous songwriter; Bob Dylan's life and music has been analyzed by fans, scholars, and even himself. So, why do we need Toby Thompson's Positively Main Street: Bob Dylan's Minnesota? Because it's a forgotten milestone. Published in 1971, it was the first biography on Dylan. Although it's been out of print since 1977, the book is, with the exception of Dylan's autobiography, perhaps the most readable and necessary volume on the folk icon.\" -City Pages  \"The new Positively Main Street is a lovely little book, even better than the original, a cherished addition to the Dylan bookshelf. Thompson and the University of Minnesota Press have enhanced what was already a classic and made it available to a whole new audience. Dylan fans owe them a debt of gratitude.\" -The Dylan Daily  \"[Thompson] ends up not only interviewing 'the Girl from the North Country,' Echo Haelstrom, and 'Bob’s' mother and brother and teachers etc., but also filling in for Dylan among his old friends and acquaintances, playing Dylan’s songs on the guitar and harmonica and singing them, in a way that may have seemed stratingly revolutionary at the time for a journalist to do, he actually recreates a bit of Dylan’s existence as his own.\" -Michael Lally, Lally's Alley","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50032206872849,"sku":"CIN081665445XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50300706685201,"sku":"CIN081665445XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/081665445X.jpg?v=1764928501"},{"product_id":"metroliner-book-toby-thompson-9780982860199","title":"Metroliner","description":"An essential companion to Riding the Rough String, his previous collection of reportage, personal essays, and profiles, Metroliner explores the two poles of Toby Thompson's life on the East Coast. For more than forty years, he has ridden the rails between Washington, DC and New York, capturing not only the sensibilities of these two cities but the tenor of his time as well. From the Smithsonian to the secret fishing spots of Manhattan, from profiles of Norman Mailer and Jackie Gleason to the White House press corps, Metroliner represents a career's worth of reportage from one of America's most accomplished writers. \u003cp\u003e An intrepid tripper in the Merry Prankster sense, and an urban Thoreau, \u003cbr\u003e Tom Wolfe \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e A first-rate collection, impressively diverse and vastly enjoyable. \u003cbr\u003e Carl Hiaasen graceful and entertaining, to say nothing of  the] energetic reporting \u003cbr\u003e Tom Brokaw\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50414355415313,"sku":"CIN0982860196VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51010422964497,"sku":"NIN9780982860199","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0982860196.jpg?v=1750748128"},{"product_id":"fired-on-book-toby-thompson-9780962378980","title":"Fired On","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51009757839633,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51009760428305,"sku":"NIN9780962378980","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0962378984.jpg?v=1751140726"},{"product_id":"positively-main-street-rare-book-toby-thompson-1733928449mep","title":"Positively Main Street","description":"1972. 1972 Reprint. 157 pages. 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