Non fiction | Richard Happer

BOOKS I WROTE FOR COLLINS

EXTREME SURVIVORS

60 stories that show incredible examples of human courage, resourcefulness and sheer guts. I have to say, this was a really entertaining book to write!

D-DAY

This tells the extraI worked on this book with the extremely knowledgeable historian of military cartography Peter Chasseaud. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the founder of the Historical Military Mapping Group of the British Cartographic Society.

ABANDONED PLACES

There's something enthralling about decay. The failure of human endeavour is saddening, but also reassuring - we are still alive even though others are long gone. Some of the images in here simply rooted me to the spot and I just had to find out more about the place. Who lived here? Why did they leave? What will happen in future?

101 WAYS TO BECOME A WORLD CHAMPION

I very nearly did myself a mischief while researching and writing this book. I decided I had to try to become a world champion and so entered as many events as I could. Pooh Sticks was great fun - Nettle Eating not so much.

AUTHOR, EDITOR & COPYWRITER

Hello, my name is Richard and I live in Edinburgh, Scotland. I have written over 20 non fiction books on a variety of topics, from Abandoned Places to D-Day. I have also written two novels: The Hills Are Stuffed With Swedish Girls and Love On The Springs of My Time-Travelling Bed.

I edit other people's books as well as writing my own. These vary from titles about Lost Railway Walks to academic textbooks. I also have over 20 years' experience as an advertising copywriter.

If you're ever in Edinburgh, pop into Summerhall and say hello – I'm usually there writing or mainlining coffee. When I'm not writing, you'll find me out tramping the Scottish hills, searching for inspiration or at least a pub with decent whisky.

This site highlights a few of my books. I give a brief introduction to each title, and you can find out more by clicking on the cover image. First up is non fiction. You can navigate to fiction and editing using the top menu. You can find my advertising work on its own website.

BOOKS I WROTE IN SECRET

Well, not really secret - what I mean is that my name is not on the cover. Someone more famous than me (not hard) gets top billing, but I definitely wrote these books and am credited inside.

BRITAIN FROM ABOVE

I found some amazing photos for this book, including many from a newly released archive of historical aerial shots. I also commissioned a professional aerial photographer to take new shots. The comparisons are fascinating.

GALAXY

I've been space-daft since I was a small boy, so I was absolutely delighted to write this book with the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Out of this world!

PICTURE ATLAS

This lovely children's atlas was illustrated by the fabulously talented Steve Evans. I wrote the words while wishing I could draw one tenth as well as Steve can.

GREAT EXPEDITIONS

This was a co-effort, with my good friends Mark Steward and Alan Greenwood taking headline billing. Although I did the lion's share of the writing! The foreword is by Levison Wood, presenter of Walking the Americas.

WEIRD BUT TRUE 2018

This is a book that the 10-year-old me would have absolutely devoured, so writing it was really fun. I shared authorship on this title with Robbie Guillory; we wrote it under the banner of the wonderful National Geographic brand.

THE LAW IS AN ASS

You know all those crazy old laws that make no sense whatsoever? Like how in Chester it's still permissible to shoot a Welshman (with a crossbow), so long as it happens within the city walls and after midnight. Well, loads of them are still on the statute books and in this little volume I gathered together the craziest and funniest from around the world.

365 REASONS TO BE PROUD TO BE SCOTTISH

This is probably the most popular book in my 365 Reasons... series (I suppose us Scots are a particularly proud lot). For every day of the year, the book gives you a fascinating fact, anecdote or story about a cool Scottish achievement, invention or discovery. I also wrote '365 Reasons...' books on being English, Irish, British, A Londoner, American, Cheerful and Looking on the Bright Side.

RIVER BOOKS

RIVER CLYDE

This was the first of the two river books that I produced with Mark Steward. I wrote the words and took some of the pictures, Mark took the rest of the pictures. He's a very talented photographer. I learned a lot while writing this book: to me the Clyde only really existed as the urban and industrial section in Glasgow, but for the majority of its length it is rural, beautiful and of great historic interest.

RIVER FORTH

The second title in our Rivers... series was just as fascinating to write as the River Clyde title. I've lived in and around central Scotland almost my whole life, but still discovered some startling facts about the River Forth, its history and geography. Some of the most important battles in our country's history have been fought within an arrow's flight of its banks. It winds past dozens of castles and many sites of importance. It's also very beautiful. Mark aced the photos again, too.

TRAVEL BOOKS

BEAUTIFUL BUGGY WALKS

Just because you have to push a small, sleepy person round the world, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy some lovely scenery. That was the main idea behind this book. I loved going on big adventurous walks before I had a family and I thought they would enjoy coming on them too. Which, happily, they did I researched the walks, wrote them up and took the pictures for this book.

COOL CAMPING BRITAIN

After I wrote 'Beautiful Buggy Walks' for Punk Publishing, they asked me to write and photograph a section for their next Cool Camping book. This sounded like my ideal job, frankly, so I packed my tent, notebook, and an industrial quantity of Pasta 'n' Sauce and headed off to research the coolest campsites in Scotland.

RICHARD HAPPER

BOOKS I WROTE FOR COLLINS

AUTHOR, EDITOR & COPYWRITER

BOOKS I WROTE IN SECRET

AMUSING BOOKS

RIVER BOOKS

TRAVEL BOOKS