Product Description

Richard Hammond is one of our most in-demand and best-loved television presenters. On September 20, 2006, he suffered a serious brain injury following a high-speed car crash, and the nation held its breath. On the Edge is his compelling account of life before and after the accident and an honest description of his year of recovery, full of drama and incident. It is also, perhaps, his explanation of why, as a married man and father of two young daughters, he was prepared to risk all by strapping himself to the front of a jet engine with the power of eleven Formula One cars. A daredevil and a petrolhead long before his association with Top Gear, Richard tells the story of his life as an adrenalin junkie, from the small boy showing off with ridiculous stunts on his bicycle to the adolescent with a near-obsessive attraction to speed and the smell of petrol. After a series of jobs in local radio, he graduated to television and eventually to Top Gear, one of the world's most popular shows, upgrading his car with each step up the ladder. His insights into the personalities, the camaraderie and, of course, the stunts for which Top Gear has become famous make compulsive reading. It was whilst filming for Top Gear, driving a jet-powered dragster at speeds over 300mph, that a tyre burst and the car left the track and rolled over, burying him in the earth. He was airlifted to hospital and hovered near death for several days. His wife Mindy tells the story of the anxious hours and days of watching and waiting until he finally emerged from his coma. In an extraordinarily powerful piece of writing, she and Richard then piece together the stages of his recovery as his shattered mind slowly reformed, leaving him sometimes lucid and plausible, sometimes confused and angry, and often exhausted. The final chapter recounts his return home and his triumphant reappearance in front of the cameras.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6932 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-20
• Released on: 2007-09-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 310 pages

About the Author
Richard Hammond is internationally famous for co-presenting Top Gear over the last 4 years with Jeremy Clarkson; he also presented Brainiac: Science Abuse on Sky 1, Should I Worry About...? on BBC 1 and Time Commanders on BBC 2. His Richard Hammond's 5 O'Clock Show was shown every weekday on ITV1 during January and February 2006, and he is a team captain on the BBC2 quiz show, Petrolheads. He writes a weekly column in The Daily Mirror. His crash whilst filming for Top Gear in September 2006 made him a household name.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic read - highly recommendable!!
This is a fantastic collaboration which describes Richard's life and achievements up until the crash and his remarkable but difficult recovery, from both Richard's and Mindy's point of view.
It is a moving story and describes well the emotional journey they had to go through together, Richard battling to recovery from a serious brain injury and Mindy, whilst wanting to stay by her husband's side in his time of need also had the stress of having to deal with press, updating other family and friends on Richard's condition and hardest of all trying to explain to their young daughters quite how poorly their Daddy was.
It is a marvellous book which I would highly recommend.

Stop it
As someone who works with people with brain injury everday of my working life i was concerned about the portrayal of Richard Hammond as having made a full recovery in the media. This book has allowed us all to read about the true devastating effect that brain injury has, not just on the survivor but also on the family and friends around them. The book is a real life story of the impact that this type of injury can have, and truly shows us that even where there are the best of technology, safety precautions etc brain injury is still a major risk. It shows it can happen to anyone!
Those people who have ranted in their reviews about having no sympathy for those that have crashes as they happen everyday, please hope that you never have to live through this yourself or with a member of your family. Richard and his wife have shown real love and devotion to each other. Yes, they are making money but i have survivors who have read this book and they have identified with every word of the details about his recovery. This book allows 'Joe Bloggs' with a brain injury to realise that they are not alone in their struggles. This is what makes the book so important! Stop knocking the guy for telling his story, it has actually helped raise awareness of brain injury amongst people who have no experience of it and gives them the ability to have compassion for those that have. Just stop and think what the book is about rather than concentrating on the money.

A truly moving book
The book tells the story of the events up to and after the crash that nearly claimed Richards life. It is very moving and inspiring book and shows the deep love that Richard and his wife Mindy have for each other and their daughters. It is this love that helped Richard pull through all the difficult times.

The chapters written by Mindy Hammond were very moving and showed her great strength in dealing with the events as they unfolded. I would recommed this excellent book to anyone.