NYT book reviews (Apr 14)

The New York Times Book Review used April 14 to spotlight two very different books: Jim Windolf’s study of Bob Dylan and the Beatles, and Solvej Balle’s fourth novel in a seven-book time-loop series. (nytimes.com) (simonandschuster.com) Windolf’s book, *Where the Music Had to Go*, was published April 14, 2026 by Scribner and runs about 400 pages. Simon & Schuster says it traces how Dylan and the Beatles pushed each other artistically, from Dylan’s early dismissal of the band to the Beatles’ close study of his songwriting. (simonandschuster.com) (acappellabooks.com) Balle’s *On the Calculation of Volume IV* also arrived April 14, 2026 in English from New Directions. The publisher describes it as the fourth installment of a seven-volume project about Tara, a woman trapped in an endless November 18, with this volume expanding the number of people caught inside the same repeated day. (ndbooks.com) (nytimes.com) The pairing shows how the Book Review can move between cultural history and translated fiction in a single issue. One book returns to the 1960s and 1970s pop canon; the other follows a contemporary Danish novelist whose series has been rolling out in English volume by volume. (simonandschuster.com) (ndbooks.com) Windolf’s subject reaches beyond music fandom because the Dylan-Beatles exchange is one of the standard stories about how popular song changed in the mid-1960s. Publisher material says the book covers Dylan’s move toward electric rock and the Beatles’ turn toward denser, more literary lyrics, framing the relationship as both rivalry and collaboration. (simonandschuster.com) (hachette.co.uk) Balle’s series works from a simpler premise: one day repeats, but the meaning of that repetition keeps changing. New Directions says Book IV shifts from solitary survival toward group life in a house in Bremen, asking how language, naming, and social order work when time no longer advances. (ndbooks.com) That gives the two reviews different kinds of context to explain. Windolf’s book sits inside a heavily documented pop history, while Balle’s novel depends on readers entering an ongoing translated project that began in Danish and is planned as a septology. (simonandschuster.com) (ndbooks.com) (complete-review.com) The background around Windolf’s book also touches a wider 1970s music world, including the era of benefit concerts and activism that followed artists like George Harrison and Ravi Shankar. The Beatles’ official site and UNICEF USA still describe the August 1, 1971 Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden as a pioneering all-star benefit for a humanitarian cause. (thebeatles.com) (unicefusa.org) Balle’s project has its own literary momentum. New Directions says the first four books are now out in English, while reference and review sources describe the original Danish work as a seven-novel series, with later volumes already existing in Danish. (ndbooks.com) (complete-review.com) Taken together, the April 14 reviews map two familiar pleasures of book coverage: reopening a well-known cultural archive and following a long, strange fiction as it unfolds one volume at a time. (nytimes.com) (simonandschuster.com)