Already regarded as a modern classic, A Book of Dreams is not only a beautifully written narrative of a remarkable friendship and collaboration, but a loving son's heartfelt tribute to a loving father. The second third of the book seemed to zoom by and had I the spare time I would have probably read much farther if not finished the book.

There's many a wretched passage in the book, with Peter struggling with loss and identity in the aftermath of his fathers passing. Having been a Kate Bush fan for decades, I was drawn into reading this from knowing she used the book as inspiration for the song lyrics Cloudbusting (bloody love that song!In some ways this book reminds me of The Glass Castle in that much of it is in the voice and point of view of a young child relating the imaginative way they coped with a father who lived outside of the norm. Was this the response of a government apparatus trying to protect its citizen's against a shonky medical treatment or was it a social manifestation of something deeper? The writing, especially the sequences from the point of view of Peter as a child, is so beautiful and really captures his childlike thoughts and voice in a rare way, and the awesome awe and respect he felt for his father. The difference, of course, is that Jeannette Walls' father was an alcoholic and Peter Reich's father was a famous psychiatrist being harassed for his unorthodox discoveries.

I wish the author had more info about himself and what he is up to now but the book is out of print and he has disappeared into anonymity.The feeling of what it must be like to be a child caught up in events beyond one's comprehension is very powerfully conveyed.

The writing is tender and emotional; you can tell Peter may have had a hard time understanding and processing his childhood once he reached adulthood and reflected on what happened. Anyway, I'm still keen to learn more about Reich, because his ideas were interesting, and while clearly a lot of what he ended up believing was nonsense, there's apparently something in some of what he did, and there was something weird going on with the FDA smashing his orgone accumulators and him dying in prison and all. Peter, his son, shared with his father the revolutionary concept of a world where dream and reality are virtually indistinguishable, and the sense of mission which set him and his followers apart from the rest of the human race. One finds themselves constantly asking whether what one is reading is meant to be reality, or a dream, or under water, or in the sky.

The writing was at times really amazing, I would give this book a rating of five, except that the part where he becomes an aimless hip twenty something in the 60s kind of detracts. Me parece una historia apasionante, escrita por un hombre real con emociones reales, con una belleza descriptiva que cautiva a cualquiera que lo lea y lo invita a soñar. Seems to lay bear the dangers of taking advantage (even if unknowingly) of a supple mind like that of a child's. This is the book that Kate Bush wrote Cloudbusting about (see the video, it was shot by Terry Gilliam).

Peter, who was only 13 at the time of Wilhelm's death, was now left to mourn the tragic loss of his father while at the same time being forced to face the idea that the life he had always known was not in line with reality. That doesn't make this a bad book, and I'm glad it inspired one of the most sublime songs (and videos) ever.

From the late 40s through to the mid-50s Reich was under investigation by the American Food and Drug Administration for providing an unauthorised form of treatment – the accumulators. He was given responsibility in this cosmic war by operating the cloudbuster, a machine that could control the weather. It seems to have made the rounds in influential artistic circles a few decades ago, but never really into the mainstream public. It's a very touching look at an incredibly interesting and bizarre life which proves that truth can indeed be stranger than fiction. Which is exactly what happened - the police came, and the boy couldn't run fast enough to warn his Dad.