Richard Hammond Books: The Full Bibliography, As You Do to On the Edge

Richard Hammond has written four Richard Hammond books, published between 2007 and 2013 in the years following his 2006 crash. This is the full bibliography: Richard Hammond On the Edge, Richard Hammond As You Do, Or Is That Just Me?, and Richard Hammond On the Road.

Richard Hammond On the Edge: My Story (2007)

Hammond’s first book, On the Edge, is a memoir centred on the 20 September 2006 jet-dragster crash at RAF Elvington, the brain injury that followed, and his recovery. It covers his life and career up to that point as well as the details of the accident and the months afterward — the same period covered in brief on the biography page. Of the four Richard Hammond books, this is the one most often searched for by name.

Richard Hammond As You Do (2008)

His second book, As You Do, subtitled Adventures with Evel, Oliver and the Vice-President of Botswana, moves away from the crash narrative into travel and encounter writing, drawing on assignments and journeys from across his broadcasting career.

Richard Hammond Or Is That Just Me? (2009)

His third book is a further collection of personal observations and stories, published two years after On the Edge and the year after As You Do.

Of all the Richard Hammond books, Richard Hammond On the Edge remains the one most cited when his career is discussed, with Richard Hammond As You Do the natural follow-up read.

Richard Hammond On the Road: Growing Up in Eight Journeys (2013)

A fourth Richard Hammond book followed in 2013, four years after Or Is That Just Me? — On the Road: Growing Up in Eight Journeys, subtitled My Early Years. Rather than extending the recovery narrative of the first three, it moves backward, using a set of formative journeys to tell the story of Hammond’s childhood and early life ahead of his broadcasting career, the same ground the biography page covers in outline. The first three books were written in close succession, within three years of the 2006 crash; On the Road arrived on a longer gap, as a look back rather than a continuation. No title has followed it since, so the bibliography of four books has not changed for over a decade.

Reading them in order

Taken together, the four books track a clear arc rather than reading as four unrelated titles. On the Edge is the most personal and the most specific, built entirely around one event and its aftermath. As You Do widens out into travel and encounter writing, using assignments from across his broadcasting career rather than a single incident. Or Is That Just Me? is the loosest of the four, a collection of personal observations rather than a single narrative thread. On the Road then loops back to the beginning, covering the childhood years that came before the other three. None of the four requires having read the others first, but reading them in publication order does trace the shift from a specific recovery story toward a broader voice and, finally, back to where the story started.

Why a TV presenter wrote a memoir first

The order matters here in a way it wouldn’t for most presenter bibliographies. Most broadcasters who publish books do so once they’re established, often as a career-retrospective or a tie-in to an existing format. Hammond’s first book instead came directly out of a single event that interrupted his career rather than capped it — a memoir written from inside a recovery rather than looking back at a finished chapter. That ordering is part of why On the Edge remains the most searched-for of the four: it’s tied to a specific, well-documented moment rather than to his broadcasting career in general, which is also the reason it’s covered in more detail on the biography page than the three books that followed it.

Richard Hammond Books: The Bibliography