This isn’t really a review, it’s more like a rave. I just finished Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968 by Ryan H. Walsh, and it’s already one of my favorite books of all time, the kind I buy multiple copies of to give to friends. Van Morrison’ album Astral Weeks is another of my favorite things in the world, a work that’s mysterious and elusive and one that I’ve always wanted to know more about, and Walsh delivers. But it’s even richer than that — I hadn’t realized that the album had it’s roots in Boston, and the narrative deftly unfolds to reveal a psychedelic panorama of that city in the pivotal year 1968, the time between The Summer of Love and Altamont. It contains so many of my interests that I started to think that it had been written for me, including the Velvet Underground (another unexpected Beantown connection), a weird cult and even the movie I consider the most undervalued of the sixties Zabriske Point. And so much more, as they say on television. My advice, in the parlance of the time, is DIG IT!
A Leak In The Safe 
I just finished reading this book. I live in Boston and read a lot of history of the city and this book expertly fills in the gaps of a time and a place that just seems to be overlooked in Boston history. I’ve always liked Van Morrison’s “Moondance” album, but now that I know it’s Boston pedigree, I will go back and revisit “Astral Weeks.”