Want to know what books Dan Richards recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Dan Richards's favorite book recommendations of all time.
1
Winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2002, Dart creates a wonderfully varied and idiomatic narrative of the River Dart in Devon. A hypnotic work, it is the first book that Alice Oswald published with Faber and Faber. more Winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2002, Dart creates a wonderfully varied and idiomatic narrative of the River Dart in Devon. A hypnotic work, it is the first book that Alice Oswald published with Faber and Faber. less 
Dan RichardsAlice Oswald is an utter wonder for saying in a line what other people would take a whole volume to gesture towards. I love this book very much. It seems to be made of verbs and actions and thoughts, it’s incredibly kinetic as a book. Exciting, and physically alluring. (Source)
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2
Denis Johnson's Train Dreams is an epic in miniature, one of his most evocative and poignant fictions. It is the story of Robert Grainier, a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century---an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime. Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West, this novella captures the disappearance of a... more Denis Johnson's Train Dreams is an epic in miniature, one of his most evocative and poignant fictions. It is the story of Robert Grainier, a day laborer in the American West at the start of the twentieth century---an ordinary man in extraordinary times. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainer struggles to make sense of this strange new world. As his story unfolds, we witness both his shocking personal defeats and the radical changes that transform America in his lifetime. Suffused with the history and landscapes of the American West, this novella captures the disappearance of a distinctly American way of life. less Dan RichardsThe man at the centre of the book lives in a symbiotic relationship with his environment, at a time when America moved from being a nation that lived in nature, to a nation who saw it as its duty to overcome nature. This is a very contemplative, beautiful meditation. (Source)
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3
First published in 1979, The White Album is a mosaic of the late sixties and seventies. It includes, among other bizarre artifacts and personalities, the dark journeys and impulses of the Manson family, a Black Panther Party press conference, the story of John Paul Getty's museum, the romance of water in an arid landscape, and the swirl and confusion of the sixties. With commanding sureness of mood and language, Joan Didion exposes the realities and dreams of that age of self-discovery whose spiritual center was California.
more First published in 1979, The White Album is a mosaic of the late sixties and seventies. It includes, among other bizarre artifacts and personalities, the dark journeys and impulses of the Manson family, a Black Panther Party press conference, the story of John Paul Getty's museum, the romance of water in an arid landscape, and the swirl and confusion of the sixties. With commanding sureness of mood and language, Joan Didion exposes the realities and dreams of that age of self-discovery whose spiritual center was California.
less Dan RichardsI feel Joan Didion is the patron saint of a maelstrom of culture and environment of a particular time. She is the great American road-trip writer, to my mind. She has that great widescreen filmic quality to her work. (Source)
Steven AmsterdamWith her gaze on California of the late 60s and early 70s, Didion gives us the Black Panthers, Janis Joplin, Nancy Reagan, and the Manson follower Linda Kasabian. (Source)
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4
Poems
Seamus Heaney | 4.59
Field Work is the record of four years during which Seamus Heaney left the violence of Belfast to settle in a country cottage with his family in Glanmore, County Wicklow. Heeding "an early warning system to get back inside my own head," Heaney wrote poems with a new strength and maturity, moving from the political concerns of his landmark volume North to a more personal, contemplative approach to the world and to his own writing. In Field Work he "brings a meditative music to bear upon fundamental themes of person and place, the mutuality of ourselves and the world" (Denis... more Field Work is the record of four years during which Seamus Heaney left the violence of Belfast to settle in a country cottage with his family in Glanmore, County Wicklow. Heeding "an early warning system to get back inside my own head," Heaney wrote poems with a new strength and maturity, moving from the political concerns of his landmark volume North to a more personal, contemplative approach to the world and to his own writing. In Field Work he "brings a meditative music to bear upon fundamental themes of person and place, the mutuality of ourselves and the world" (Denis Donoghue, The New York Times Book Review). less 
Robin RobertsonWritten at a fresh distance from his home in the North of Ireland and the Troubles: these are limber, rangy, exquisite poems. (Source)
Robin RobertsonWritten at a fresh distance from his home in the North of Ireland and the Troubles: these are limber, rangy, exquisite poems. (Source)
Robin RobertsonWritten at a fresh distance from his home in the North of Ireland and the Troubles: these are limber, rangy, exquisite poems. (Source)
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5
In 1966 John Berger spent three months in the Forest of Dean shadowing an English country GP, John Sassall.
Sassall is a fortunate man - his work occupies and fulfils him, he lives amongst the patients he treats, the line between his life and his work is happily blurred.
In A Fortunate Man, Berger's text and the photography of Jean Mohr reveal with extraordinary intensity the life of a remarkable man. It is a portrait of one selfless individual and the rural community for which he became the hub. Drawing on psychology, biography and medicine A Fortunate Man is a portrait... more In 1966 John Berger spent three months in the Forest of Dean shadowing an English country GP, John Sassall.
Sassall is a fortunate man - his work occupies and fulfils him, he lives amongst the patients he treats, the line between his life and his work is happily blurred.
In A Fortunate Man, Berger's text and the photography of Jean Mohr reveal with extraordinary intensity the life of a remarkable man. It is a portrait of one selfless individual and the rural community for which he became the hub. Drawing on psychology, biography and medicine A Fortunate Man is a portrait of sacrifice. It is also a profound exploration of what it means to be a doctor, to serve a community and to heal.
With a new introduction by novelist and GP, Gavin Francis. less 
Gavin FrancisBerger was an astonishingly skilled and observant witness of anything he turned his gaze onto. (Source)
Dan RichardsSo the landscape is almost virgin and primordial, but at the same time, you get this very forward-thinking, almost revolutionary, doctor John Sassall. He’s kind of as much an alchemist as he is a doctor. It’s almost a nature documentary, this little microcosm of the country doctor as viewed through the lens of John Berger. (Source)
Tom OvertonIt’s about a country GP, he had this extremely intimate relationship with the people around him, but also had to be extremely distant. (Source)
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