Available as Hardback
27 March 2025
An exploration of night – the nocturnal world, insomnia, the creative potential of the dark hours, the work that happens at night to keep the modern world moving – by Sunday Times bestselling author Dan Richards
There is something special about the night. For many, just the idea of it conjures thoughts of starlit skies, romance, refuge, of being tucked up in bed. For some, the night means fear, vulnerability, danger, sleeplessness. At night things go bump, monsters hide under beds, owls take wing and foxes prowl. For others still, nightfall signals the start of work.
Overnight is a celebration of all things nocturnal, of those who labour while the rest of us sleep: the bakers, health workers, sailors, couriers, broadcasters, drivers, fishers, the emergency services and more. And it is also a hymn to nighttime wildlife, dreams and art. We’ll hang out with bats and look at the stars. We’ll learn what Moomintroll has to teach us. We’ll travel by ship, train, racing car and foot. There will be more than one surprise along the way.
Through a series of personal journeys Dan Richards explores what the night means to a fascinating array of people, taking us from night terrors to the glow of watching the dawn break on the summer solstice. Overnight will change the way you think about the hours after dark.
“The height of crafted eloquence”
Samantha Harvey
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“A revelatory journey into the teeming life of the night. Moving, engrossing, essential”
Katherine May
“I loved Overnight. It is 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”
Sarah Perry
“In Overnight, Dan Richards introduces us to the shadowy, starlit world of postal workers, night nurses, twenty-four-hour industry, late night radio, search and rescue. We meet desperate rough sleepers, racing demons, new mothers … and what shines through most clearly is the humour and the pathos, the remarkable diversity in what it means to live, to work, to love. A lucid dream of a book, one that will keep you up late reading”
Cal Flyn
“Dan Richards’ writing spans great gulfs of emotion and experience. He is witty and profound and his curiosity and empathy know no bounds. He takes us deep into the night and brings it utterly alive. He fills that space in our dreams with the reality - of what goes on when the sun goes down”
Philip Hoare
Dan Richards
Dan Richards is the co-author of Holloway (with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood), and the author of The Beechwood Airship Interviews, Climbing Days, Outpost and Overnight. Only After Dark, a BBC Radio 4 series about the nocturnal world, was broadcast to acclaim in 2022. Dan has written for the Guardian, Economist, Esquire and Monocle.
@Dan_Zep