Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth

by Dan Richards

Overview

There are still wild places out there on our crowded planet.

Through a series of personal journeys, Dan Richards explores the appeal of far-flung outposts in mountains, tundra, forests, oceans, and deserts. Following a route from the Cairngorms of Scotland to the fire-watch lookouts of Washington State; from Iceland’s “Houses of Joy” to the Utah desert; frozen ghost towns in Svalbard to shrines in Japan; Roald Dahl’s writing hut to a lighthouse in the North Atlantic, Richards explores landscapes which have inspired writers, artists, and musicians, and asks: why are we drawn to wilderness? What can we do to protect them? And what does the future hold for outposts on the edge?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786891570
Publisher:	Canongate Books
Publication date:	08/11/2020
Edition description:	Main
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Dan Richards is the co-author of Holloway (with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood), and the author of The Beechwood Airship Interviews and Climbing Days. He has written for the Guardian, Economist, Harper's Bazaar, Caught by the River, Monocle, and the Quietus. He is an RLF Fellow at Bristol University.

@Dan_Zep

Editorial Reviews

There’s a special magic in Richards’ luminous descriptions of nature and place, but also in the stories he tells . . . Richards has penned a thoughtful and beautifully written meditation on our quest to find spaces in which we can find something unexpected in ourselves and forge a new relationship with the natural world” Guardian

“Richards’ prose is by turns beautiful, funny, evocative, and learned, the pages illuminated by lovely, warming footnotes . . . [Richards' voice is] vivid, self-deprecating, literary, and very, very funny” Observer

“Dan Richards is a wonderful storyteller, wise, wry, and open-hearted, the perfect traveling companion. Outpost tells stories of emptiness, but is bursting with gorgeous life and language. It is a joy to read” MAX PORTER

“Vivid, funny and moving—a wonderful stylist” SARAH PERRY

“Fascinating and funny” Financial Times

“Dan Richards is brave, bold, pure of spirit, and, on occasion, foolish. In Outpost Dan follows both his father’s footsteps and his own heart to explore the furthest possibilities of human habitation, and our interface with a changing wilderness. Intelligent, surreal, and always generous, Dan Richards is a Jerome K. Jerome for our set-upon times who bequeaths us that rarest gift—laughter” KATHARINE NORBURY, author of The Fish Ladder

“This book will be equally at home in the library of the armchair traveller and the kitbag of the weather-beaten nomad—Dan Richards has created an atlas of adventure for every reader possessed of an intrepid imagination” NANCY CAMPBELL, author of The Library of Ice

“Dan Richards is that rare thing, a writer whose way of looking at the world is utterly unique . . . Outpost is shot through with a sense of wonder, an infectious enthusiasm, and a surreal wit. Pure joy” RUPERT THOMSON

“An incredible book, beautifully written, wild, and wickedly funny” PHILIP HOARE

“Just my kind of book, stuffed full of telling oddities, strange encounters and lyricism. Richards brings to us the supreme joy, glory, and terror of what it is to be truly isolated in the wild” BENEDICT ALLEN

From the Publisher

Climbing Days is the most enormous fun... Richards has something of Jerome K Jerome about him. It’s a miracle he lived to tell this tale and Climbing Days is a wonderful achievement. I will be intrigued to see where he takes us next.

Observer

Climbing Days is a special book, not quite like anything I have ever read before, and a law unto itself. It's a wayward, funny, warm, wandering, open, inspiring journey back into the lives of two remarkable people, and out into the remarkable landscapes they explored. Climbing Days belongs in part to a rich comic tradition of mountain-writing which includes Bowman's The Ascent of Rum Doodle and Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.

Robert Macfarlane

World traveler Dan Richards’s clear voice and English accent make him sound as if he’s telling tales of his journeys in a pub. His tone is self-effacing, witty, and intimate. His unhurried pace reflects his aim to convince the listener of the value of the earth’s remote and often romantic places. He makes a companionable guide on this idiosyncratic tour of the forlorn and the majestic. His reflections are infused with literary allusions and informed by history and lore. Much is to be learned and considered in his wandering to northernmost Norway, Iceland, Scotland, to the Mars Project in an empty part of Utah, and to Desolation Peak, where Jack Kerouac was a lookout in Washington’s Cascade mountains. A.D.M. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2020 - AudioFile