Rolling Stone contributing editor Cott (There’s a Mystery There) offers fascinating insights into the minds and work of renowned creative figures in this collection of 22 interviews he’s done over the course of his career. Cott speaks to Bob Dylan in 1977 shortly after the release of the second movie directed by the singer, Renaldo and Clara, drawing connections between the film’s symbolism and Dylan’s lyrics. Chinua Achebe discusses the importance of storytelling and of “preserving and refurbishing the landscape of the imagination,” while Elizabeth Taylor, interviewed in 1987, recalls her early stardom unsentimentally, describing golden-age Hollywood as less an “extended family,” as described by one of her peers, than as a “big extended factory.”

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