The Nearest Faraway Place, Timothy White

A remarkable feat of in-depth reporting. The Nearest Faraway Place is simultaneously a social history of Southern California in the 1960s and an intimate portrait of the quintessential California band – The Beach Boys. Intertwined with the personal stories of the Beach Boys themselves is the story of the Los Angeles basin and its unlikely development from desert to the nation’s playground. Here, too, is the growth of California’s music industry to a prominence rivalling the most powerful Hollywood studios. More than just the story of a band, this remarkable book reveals the influences that formed the Beach Boys and the golden music they created.