RICHARD ASKWITH
Author, journalist, speaker, runner
BOOKS
The last time I counted, I had written seven books under my own name, in addition to various collaborations and anthologies. Several involve running, including my latest, The Race Against Time. But I’ve also written about democracy, rural traditions, horse-racing and 20th-century European history (sometimes in the same book…)
UPCOMING EVENTS
TALKS etc
I’m a bit of a recluse: I generally prefer to let my books do the talking.
But I do make occasional public appearances. Here’s what I
currently seem to have in my calendar…
| What | Where | When | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chaired discussion, book-signing, etc: The Race Against Time | Guernsey Literary Festival | Saturday 4 May 2024, 14:00 | Organiser’s site → |
| Talk, Q&A & book-signing: Feet in the Clouds, 20 years on | Armitt Museum, Ambleside | Thursday 6 June 2024 (details to be confirmed) | Organiser’s site → |
| Talk, Q&A, book-signing: Feet in the Clouds and more | Theatre by the Lake, Keswick | Saturday 8 June 2024, 12:30 | Organiser’s site → |
JOURNALISM
Between books, I earn my living writing features for newspapers and magazine. Most end up behind pay-walls, these days, but I’ve collected a few random examples here, if you’re curious. Or browse below…
Game of bones: the men who buy dinosaurs
How high-end dinosaur fossils became the latest must have item for super-rich collectors
Chariots of Fire: my part in its Oscar-winning glory
Forty years on from its release, a very personal celebration of the greatest of all running films
Imaginary fell-running during lockdown
Perhaps the strangest article I’ve written about my favourite sport, yet also curiously evocative
Who needs the Lords? Bring on the People’s Peers
An unorthodox but timely proposal (also made in my book, People Power) for parliamentary reform
“If you’re not cold, or wet, or lost, or exhausted, or bruised by rocks or covered in mud, you’re not really experiencing the mountains properly…
You need to lose yourself – for it is then that you are most human”
— Richard Askwith, Feet in the Clouds (2004)
“’You must have a lot of will-power,’ people say when they hear that I still go running every day. To which I reply: bollocks. I exercise no more will-power in going running than I would in eating a bar of chocolate. It’s my little treat. Or, rather, my big treat: a seemingly inexhaustible stream of free, life-affirming brightness from which I constantly refresh myself”
— Richard Askwith, Running Free (2014)
What People Say
“Askwith is arguably running’s finest writer”
– Rick Pearson, Runner’s World
“His prose is as easeful and exhilarating as his energy and attitude”
— Ian Finlayson, The Times
“He writes beautifully”
— Sue Arnold, The Observer
richardaskwith.com 