Bøker av Dan Richards

An exploration of the outposts set along the edges of civilisation and the impact that visiting these has on the human spirit, from the co-author of Holloway

In Climbing Days, Dan Richards is on the trail of his great-great-aunt, Dorothy Pilley, a prominent and pioneering mountaineer of the early twentieth century. For years, Dorothy and her husband, I. A. Richards, remained mysterious to Dan, but the chance discovery of her 1935 memoir, Climbing Days, leads him on a journey. Perhaps, in the mountains, he can meet them halfway?Following in the pair's footholds, Dan begins to travel and climb across Europe, using Dorothy's book as a guide. Learning the ropes in Wales and Scotland, scrambling in the Lake District, scaling summits in Spain and Switzerland, he closes in on the serrate pinnacle of Ivor and Dorothy's climbing lives, the mighty Dent Blanche in the high Alps of Valais.What emerges is a beautiful portrait of a trailblazing woman, up to now lost to history - but also a book about that eternal question: why do people climb mountains?

A journey into the headspaces and workplaces of some of Britain's most unique artists, from the co-author of the critically acclaimed Holloway.Bill Drummond. Richard Lawrence. Stanley Donwood. Jenny Saville. David Nash. Manic Street Preachers. Dame Judi Dench. Cally Callomon. Sheryl Garratt. Vaughan Oliver. Jane Bown. Steve Gullick. Stewart Lee. The Butcher of Common Sense. Robert Macfarlane.Artists. Writers. Photographers. Musicians. A comedian. An actor. A printer. An airship.The people interviewed in this book come from all corners of Britain's cultural landscape but are united in their commitment to their craft.At the beginning of this extraordinary memoir, Dan Richards impulsively decides to build an airship in his art school bar, an act of opposition which leads him to meet and interview some of Britain's most extraordinary artists, craftsmen and technicians in the spaces and environments in which they work.His search for what it is that compels both him and them to create becomes a profound examination of what it is to be an artist in 21st Century Britain, and an inspiring testament to the importance of making art for art's sake.

Holloway - a hollow way, a sunken path. In July 2005, Robert Macfarlane and Roger Deakin - author of Wildwood - travelled to explore the holloways of South Dorset's sandstone. Six years later, after Roger Deakin's early death, Robert Macfarlane returned to the holloway with the artist Stanley Donwood and writer Dan Richards.