{"title":"Books by Ray Robertson","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781771964623","title":"Estates Large and Small","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProfound, perceptive, and wryly observed, \u003cem\u003eEstates Large and Small\u003c\/em\u003e is the story of one man’s reckoning and an ardent defense of the shape books make in a life.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat 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, he suspects that he’s overdue when it comes to understanding the bigger picture of who he is and what we’re all doing here. So he’s made another decision: to teach himself 2,500 years of Western philosophy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThankfully, he meets Caroline, a fellow book lover who agrees to join him on his trek through the best of what’s been thought and said. But Caroline is on her own path, one that compels Phil to rethink what it means to be alive in the twenty-first century. In \u003cem\u003eEstates Large and Small\u003c\/em\u003e Ray Robertson renders one man’s reckoning with both wry humour and tender joy, reminding us of what it means to live, love, and, when the time comes, say goodbye.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303900754293,"sku":"9781771964623","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781771964623_b55ad4e1-78a0-4e92-8cd2-a5f26dbd8cc1.jpg?v=1786024688"},{"product_id":"9781771965705","title":"All the Years Combine","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Grateful Dead concert, Ray Robertson argues, is life. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLike 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 (and devolution) through their shows, from the R\u0026amp;B-based garage band at the beginning, to the jazz-rock conjurers at their creative peak, to the lumbering monolith of their decline.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eAll the Years Combine: The Grateful Dead in Fifty Shows\u003c\/em\u003e, Robertson listens to and writes ecstatically about fifty of the band's most important and memorable concerts in order to better understand who the Grateful Dead were, what they became, and what they meant—and what they continue to mean.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304347283829,"sku":"9781771965705","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781771965705_1c958cb4-6968-4222-b3dc-a6734107f531.jpg?v=1786024710"},{"product_id":"9781771966559","title":"Dust","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e“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.”—\u003ci\u003eBlues Blast Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eDust: More Lives of the Poets (with Guitars)\u003c\/em\u003e, 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 musicians. From rock to folk, blues to gospel, country to the unclassifiable; from the famous, to the forgotten, to the barely known, Ray Robertson combines a novelist’s eye for dramatic detail with an unapologetic fanboy’s obsession with the lives and lasting artistic achievements of twelve of his musical heroes.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56369137910133,"sku":"9781771966559","price":13.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781771966559_5900bee6-a17d-49ea-8d6a-3e014a486b1a.jpg?v=1786024725"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-ray-robertson.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}