The paperback of Overnight is published this week on Thursday 12th. Thanks to everyone who supported the hardback. The updated edition has extra material and a beautiful new cover photograph taken on Skye by @nicholasjrwhite (purple midsummer at the port of Uig).
To celebrate the paperback I’m doing some events - first at @themargatebookshop with @amblomfield on March 18th, then at @stanfordstravel in London with @monisha_rajesh (April 8th), @forumbookscorbridge (April 9th) and @toppingsedin with @zain.rishi (April 24th) with more dates to be announced.
Details can be found in my bio ☝️ on my website - danrichards.uk
Thanks to @robgmacfarlane , @calflyn , @katherinemay_ et al for their kind words about the book.
Samantha Harvey has said that Overnight felt choral to her: ‘all those different nocturnal voices singing at the same time, and the cumulative effect of it is powerful and moving’ and @sarah_grace_perry described the book as ‘both gripping and consoling, and full of an intelligent, querying tenderness for its subjects. I was never sure whether I'd be moved to laughter or tears: often, it was both, and in the end I was sad to leave Richards' humane and witty company…’ which is very lovely of her.
If you’d like to see if I’m witty and humane off the page, do join me at a bookshop near you soon!
#danrichards #overnight #paperback #canongatebooks #canongate
Overnight by Dan Richards (Journeys, Conversations and Stories After Dark)
I’ve been wanting to read this book for a while now, ever since I heard about the premise, which fascinated me. It’s about the exploration of the night and what happens when the majority of the world goes to sleep. It’s a work of nonfiction that unfolds as a series of interconnected personal explorations and encounters, each a self contained journey into different workings of the nocturnal world.
The book begins with a moment of personal vulnerability for Richards, a sleepless, freezing night high on a Swiss mountain (around 3,600 metres up) with his father, waiting to be rescued after a hiking mishap. This sleepless ordeal reawakens Richards fascination with the night, which leads to a series of immersive encounters with those who live and work while most of us sleep.
He spends time with night shift nurses navigating exhaustion and compassion in hospital corridors. Crane operators at Southampton docks enduring isolating routines. RNLI lifeboat crews launching into stormy darkness for rescues. Amateur bat surveyors listening for echolocation in the countryside, and broadcasters sustaining late night radio. He also attends the Le Mans 24 hour race, where the roar of engines blurs between day and night. He contemplates stargazing, dreams, night terrors, and the silent labour of those who repair infrastructure while cities rest. There’s even a very careful, non exploitative glimpse into the rough sleepers in Westminster, which he handles with great restraint and respect.
Overnight reframes the night not as something to fear or escape, but as a realm of unique stories and human endurance. It’s a realm that’s vibrant, full of endurance, creativity, and unseen care. It ends beautifully as we go from the darkness of the nocturnal world to the warmth of dawn on the summer solstice.
I loved this book, and the paperback version of Overnight is out today (12th March 2026).
#overnight #danrichards #nonfiction #bookreview #releaseday
I’ve made a Spotify playlist for my forthcoming Overnight book.
130+ songs that either soundtracked the writing, research and editing, or crop up in the book itself.
It’s alphabetical (mostly) and features a track from each artist/collaboration listed in the discography (which follows the bibliography.)
I hope you enjoy it!
The link is below 👇 and in my Linktree above 👆
/playlist/2qbtzDgfyPFfB4I1V1qDN6?si=ddc706bf13b44748
Our pal in Edinburgh, the fabulous nature writer @dan_zep , has a big new writing project about Arthur’s Seat and Holyrood Park. And he thought it might be a good idea to see geologists at work. So Auriol Rae and I put together a crack team of our @uoegeosciences students to head out and see the rocks.
There was sun. There was rain. There was black smoke spewing out of Fife in the distance (the recycling center, as it turned out, was on fire). There was hail. Yes, hail. Typical May weather in Scotland, where we get all four seasons in the span of 15 minutes.
But we did see rocks. Lots of them! Where James Hutton (born 300 years ago) first understood that different rocks at different times could form in different ways, by observing crystalline volcanic rock nestled up against muddy sedimentary rock, intruded into it. Revolutionary for the 18th century. The foundation of the science of geology!
And we even saw some fossil plants in the mudstones, pieces of the bark and stems from those giant Carboniferous Coal Swamp jungle trees.
If you don’t know Dan Richards and his books, then what are you waiting for? Outpost is my favorite, stories of extreme people doing extreme things at the extreme ends of the world. And Overnight. And the rerelease of Climbing Days. And many more. Usually found in the bookshop wherever they put books by @robgmacfarlane 😉
#books #bookstagram #edinburgh #scotland #arthursseat
A beautiful day to record with @greenladybroadcasting for @bbcradio4
Sun, Loch Tay, hazel roundhouses, a magnificent crannog-in-progress, The Royal Scotsman and vanishing points aplenty.
Thanks to everyone at the @scottishcrannogcentre for making us so welcome
I’m involved with THREE events at Topping & Company of Edinburgh @toppingsedin in the coming weeks:
On Friday 24th April I have my paperback event for ‘Overnight’ @canongatebooks – do come along if you’re able. The excellent @zain.rishi is going to interview me and BBC Radio 4’s Ron Brown will be joining us to talk about and read a bit of The Shipping Forecast.
Then, on Thursday 30th April, I’ll be in conversation with Andrey Kurkov about his new Kyiv Mystery, ‘The Lost Soldiers’. @maclehosepress
Very excited about this. Andrey is a fantastic writer and has long been a hero of mine so I was over the moon to be asked to interview him and the book is great.
And finally, in May, I’ll be celebrating the publication of @calflyn ’s much anticipated follow up to 2021’s bestselling, widely celebrated ‘Islands of Abandonment’ @wmcollinsbooks
Join us to explore ‘The Savage Landscape – an evolution of wilderness’ on Monday 18th May (and then again, if you like, at Topping, St Andrews @toppingsstas the following night - Tuesday 19th May.)
#danrichards #overnight #toppingsbookshop #andreykurkov #calflyn
An inspiring evening with Dan Richards @dan_zep and Oskar Jensen @oskarcoxjensen discussing OVERNIGHT - a fascinating look at the hidden world that comes alive after dark. Brilliant conversation, fresh perspectives, and a room full of book lovers. 📚🌟
Thank you @forumbookscorbridge for such brilliant events you organise for us! 🙏❤️
_________________
Corbridge, Northumberland, UK - 9 April, 2026.
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#corbridgevilllage #lovecorbridge #visitcorbridge #visitnorthumberland #booksbooksbooks
As inveterate night owls, we couldn’t be more enthused at the news that writer and broadcaster Dan Richards @dan_zep will be joining us at the 2026 #SherborneTravelWritingFestival to talk all things Overnight, a book of Journeys, Conversations and Stories after Dark 🌙🦉
Overnight is a celebration of all things nocturnal, of those who labour while the rest of us sleep: the bakers, health workers, sailors and dockers, couriers, broadcasters, drivers, fishers and the emergency services, to name a few. It is also a hymn to nighttime wildlife, dreams and art.
As the @obsnewreview says of Dan’s work, ‘Throughout this guide to that realm, he finds that where there’s darkness there’s often light’.
We look forward to joining and journeying with Dan into the night — and you can too, tickets are available now for Dan Richards’ festival talk on his book Overnight, Saturday 11th April from 3.30pm — link in bio ✨
#Travelwriting #DanRichards #Overnight #nightwriting
This talk replaces that of Raja Shehadah and Penny Johnson who unfortunately are prevented by events in the Middle East from travelling to Sherborne.
Delighted that Overnight has been named paperback of the week by @theobserveruk
Thanks to @tom.gatti , & @chrisjohnpower for his generous write up.
/culture/books/article/paperback-of-the-week-overnight-by-dan-richards
Link also in bio.
🦉✨Celebrate with us the paperback launch of Overnight, a journey through starlit skies, nocturnal wildlife, and the voices of those who work while the rest of us dream.
Join Author Dan Richards @dan_zep in conversation with Monisha Rajesh @monisha_rajesh at Stanfords on 8th April.
From bakers and sailors to the magic of the summer solstice, discover a choral and moving tribute to the hours after dark.
Tickets are available now at £8.00, or £15.99 including a copy of the book.
Tickets are selling fast! Head over to the link in Bio to secure your spot
🚨
#londonevents #danrichards #monishrajesh #overnight
A great pleasure to speak To Richard Fidler on @abcradionational ‘Conversations’ ahead of the paperback release of Overnight - link below, in bio/linktree and on my website:
‘Night-time is universal in that everyone goes through it, but there are so many different experiences of the dark.
Writer and broadcaster, Dan Richards has met the many people who work, helping others and doing the invisible organising that keeps our communal world turning while others rest.
Dan says the night is a place of encounters — both magical and disturbing.
It was an unexpected night with his father, when they were stranded on the side of a Swiss mountain that made Dan consider the expansive darkness for the first time.
He set out to record the different ways so many people spend the wee hours, and in doing so Dan has shadowed search and rescue teams who take off into the night air in a helicopter, and braved a storm full of 8m high waves on a Scottish ferry.
Recently he has started a new adventure — fatherhood, which has given him a new understanding of the pleasures and pain of being awake in the small hours, now in service to his young son.’
.au/listen/programs/conversations/dan-richards-overnight-night-time-service-fatherhood/106329046
Further information
Overnight: Journeys, Conversations and Stories After Dark is published by Allen & Unwin in Australia and @canongatebooks in the UK, US & Commonwealth.
Credits
Nicola Harrison, Executive Producer
Alice Moldovan, Producer
Richard Fidler And Sarah Kanowski, Presenter
#abcconversations #conversations #abcradio #overnight #danrichards
Part 3 of the books read, enjoyed in / recommend from 2025
(Most of these are from bedside table – nearly all recently read or re-read but some just begun/in progress…)
Happy 2026, everyone x d
