Inspired by the exploits of ill-fated country-rock visionary Gram Parsons, this mid-60s tale of idealism and escape traces the trials of a fictionalized draft-dodging flower child from the United States to Canada and back. It is the late 1960s in Yorkville, Toronto's hippie ghetto of artists, intellectuals, drunken poets, and would-be rock stars. In this idyllic haven, narrator Bill Hansen, a drummer, meets Thomas Graham, an American musician on the lam from the draft. The two form a band,...

A radical revaluation of how contemporary society perceives death—and an argument for how it can make us happy.“He who would teach men to die would teach them to live,” writes Montaigne in Essais, and in How to Die: A Book about Being Alive, Ray Robertson takes up the challenge. Though contemporary society avoids the subject and often values the mere continuation of existence over its quality, Robertson argues that the active and intentional consi...

It’s 1979 and Tom Buzby is thirteen years old and living in the small working- class city of Chatham, Ontario. So far, so normal. Except that Tom’s dad is the local tattoo artist, his mother is a born-again former stripper who’s run off with the minister from the church where the pet store used to be, and his sister can’t wait to leave town for good. And everyone along his daily newspaper route looks at him a little differently, this boy who’s come back from the dead, who just might be the...

A mid-life crisis novel that reads like a Beat romp: think Kerouac, in his 50s, cooped up & caring for his dadBlend of fiction and philosophy with plain-spoken voice makes accessible, interesting, entertaining general readingHas demonstrated consistent sales growth in CDN & US salesDavid, though past its reviewing season, generated considerable interest from librarians, booksellers, professors, and the NPR staff at BEANPR is interested in having Ray...

Religious or secular, fundamentalism is not unique to any particular political persuasion. To those in narrow-minded pursuit of ideological purity, disagreement is tantamount to treason and punishable by censure, ostracism, or cancellation. But how does this attitude shape how we engage with contemporary politics, public opinion, or art? Passionately argued, coolly critical, irreverently humorous, The Right to Be Wrong is a vigorous defence of independent thinking in an increasing...

Religious or secular, fundamentalism is not unique to any particular political persuasion. To those in narrow-minded pursuit of ideological purity, disagreement is tantamount to treason and punishable by censure, ostracism, or cancellation. But how does this attitude shape how we engage with contemporary politics, public opinion, or art? Passionately argued, coolly critical, irreverently humorous, The Right to Be Wrong is a vigorous defence of independent thinking in an increasing...

“Robertson offers the whole picture, warts and all. In doing so, he honors the music of artists who have enriched his life—and opens the door for his readers to experience the same magic.”—Blues Blast MagazineIn Dust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars), Ray Robertson digs deep, offering up an eclectic gathering of a dozen biographical and critical portraits of some of the twentieth century’s most innovative, influential, and fascinating musici...

The setting (in Chatham, Ontario) is underdiscussed, but hugely important to the history of the US slave tradeConnects to history of the Underground RailwayRay Robertson received excellent Canadian coverage for his latest book with Biblioasis, is an extremely personable reader, and has connections with several cities in the states (especially Austin, TX, where he went to school).

A Grateful Dead concert, Ray Robertson argues, is life.Like life, it can be alternately compelling and lackluster; familiar and foreign; occasionally sublime and sometimes insipid. Although the Grateful Dead stopped the day Jerry Garcia’s heart did, what the band left behind is the next best thing to being there in the third row, courtesy of the group’s unorthodox decision to record all of their concerts. Meaning that it’s possible to follow the band’s evolution (a...

Winner of Georgian Bay Reads 2025Profound, perceptive, and wryly observed, Estates Large and Small is the story of one man’s reckoning and an ardent defense of the shape books make in a life.What decades of rent increases and declining readership couldn’t do, a pandemic finally did: Phil Cooper has reluctantly closed his secondhand bookstore and moved his business online. Smoking too much pot and listening to too much Grateful Dead...

“The days of poets moping around castle steps wearing black capes is over. The poets of today are amplified.”— LEONARD COHENPicking up where Samuel Johnson left off more than two centuries ago, Ray Robertson’s Lives of the Poets (with Guitars) offers up an amplified gathering of thirteen portraits of rock & roll, blues, folk, and alt-country’s most inimitable artists. Irreverent and riotous, Robertson explores the “greater or lesser heat” with which...

From critically acclaimed novelist Ray Robertson comes a rollicking Great Gatsby of the 60s a sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll-suffused modern tragedy. As Bill Hansen recounts the rise and fall of Thomas Graham and his musical vision, he simultaneously tells the story of frustrated idealism and the passing of an entire generation.