Rush drummer Neil Peart’s final book to be published this year

Rush drummer Neil Peart’s final book is set to be published posthumously this year.

The late drummer and lyricist, who died in 2020 aged 67 after three years of quietly battling brain cancer, documented his obsession with sports cars of the 1960s in his book Silver Surfers.

The book is expected to arrive this May, and can be pre-ordered on the Rush website.

An Instagram post from the band this weekend read: “For Neil Peart, cars were a lifelong passion, and in his final literary creation, he writes about his beloved Silver Surfers collection; the joy of collecting these exquisite, rare, and important sports cars, and the myriad ways that they brought him great joy.

A quote from Peart himself explained: “The title Silver Surfers for my collection of cars occurred to me while driving my DB5 up and down the Pacific Coast Highway. Because it felt right to me, I guess – the idea that I was just one of the wave riders…’

“In search of natural peace, I often drove out that way and up in to the Santa Monica Mountains. Out past Malibu to Ventura County, I’d weave along barren ridges of rock and vegetation, the ocean always on one big side…

“The waves were slow and gentle, or churned out a powerful, rolling rhythm….”

A portion of the book proceeds will be donated to both the Neil Peart Memorial at Lakeside Park and the American Brain Tumor Association from The Estate of Neil Peart.

The drummer and twice inducted Hall Of Fame musician wrote both fiction and non fiction books alongside his music career, including travel memoirs about motorbike and bicycle trips around the world.

He also collaborated with author Kevin J. Anderson on the Clockwork books, the most recent of which was Clockwork Destiny in 2022.

Back in November, Rush‘s Geddy Lee opened up about the last time he saw his former bandmate.

During a Q&A held as part of the book tour for his memoir, My Effin’ Life, Lee revealed that Peart “would listen to a different Rush album” in the last months of his life, and “would be analysing it and listening to something he hadn’t heard, sometimes since we’d made it”.

Lee continued: “And by the time that he sadly passed, he had listened to pretty much all the work we had done as a band. And the last time I saw him…”