Here it goes: You've fallen for Bob Dylan, hard, or The Beatles, or the Rolling Stones. But you don't want to appear totally clueless about the life and tunes of these classic acts, so you want to bone up a little on their storied histories. Where to go first?

The good folks at Rough Guides — best known for their travel books — have an answer for you, in their handy-dandy line of music books. Two of the newest are The Rough Guide To The Rolling Stones and a revised second edition of their excellent Rough Guide To Bob Dylan. Both may not cover every note and chorus of careers that've stretched 40 years (and counting!), but they're groovy sum-ups that'll please new and old fans alike.

The format of both books (and other books on The Beatles and Pink Floyd) is the same – a walk through the bands' history, followed by a critical complete discography and a list of the acts' 50 greatest songs, and polished off by a look at books, movies, guides to rarities and other trivia and curiosities.

The Dylan book is just the tip of the iceberg of Dylan-related literature, but author Nigel Williamson does his best to untangle Dylan's myths and mystery. Dylan remains enigmatic, but Williamson gives us a lot to consider. His take is opinionated without being arrogant, and his views of the albums are even-handed: "Highway 61 Revisited … is the album that invented attitude and raised it to an art form," while the woebegone '80s disc Down In The Groove is "frankly atrocious."

It doesn't include this year's Modern Times, released too late to add, but everything else is pretty comprehensive. From a look at Dylan's bootleg vaults to discussions of the history behind his protest songs, Williamson crafts an excellent overview of an enormous life. Collaborators and influences such as Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez and The Band also get their due. Once you've read this, you'll want to dig into the dozens of other Dylan tomes out there as well, which are handily listed as well in this guide.

The Rolling Stones never had the literary reputation Dylan has, but their raunchy rock anthems and staggering longevity as a band have carved them their own firm place in rock history. Rough Guide author Sean Egan looks at the highs — Exile on Main Street, Let It Bleed — and the lows – the death of Brian Jones, the slow march toward blandness in their records of the '80s and '90s. Egan agrees with most critics that the Stones left their most vital creative years behind in the 1970s – "more than anything else they resemble not functioning, vital recording artists but a gargantuan version of acts … who play their old hits to the nostalgia circuit."

But Egan also builds a firm case that their longevity doesn't discount the Stones' considerable gifts, that they're more than a vaudeville revue. Besides the big hits, he does a great job pointing newcomers to rarer classics like "Come On" or "One Hit (To The Body)." He also digs into the personalities behind the band, crafting tight portraits of Jagger, Richards, Watts, etc. (He does seem to have a bias toward Richards as the band's biggest creative mastermind, but leaves it to the readers to make the final call there.)

These Rough Guides and their wide sweep and general professionalism make me eager to see more books in the line – say, David Bowie, The Who or U2?