Goodbye to a River is a book by author John Graves , published in 1960. It is a "semi-historical" account of a canoe trip made by the author during the Fall of 1958 down a stretch of the Brazos River in North Central Texas, between Possum Kingdom Dam and Lake Whitney , and contains both the author's account of the trip itself and numerous stories about the history and settling of the area around the river and North Central Texas. The title is a reference to Graves's childhood association with the river and the country surrounding it and his fear of the the "drowning" effect that a proposed series of flood-control dams (most notably, Lake Granbury ) would have on the river.

The three reservoirs mentioned above are the only dams that were ever built on the river, out of a plan that at one time proposed up to thirteen at various locations along its course to the Gulf of Mexico. Goodbye to a River - and the public's positive reaction to it - is often cited as a major reason that the proposed dams were never built.

The book is acclaimed as a work of both conservationism and history and is often compared to Walden by Henry David Thoreau.