My Booky Wook

Summary

This "warts and all" account of Brand's life follows, in vivid detail, the star's life from his troubled childhood in Gray's End Close, Essex to his first taste for fame in Stage School up to his turbulent drug addiction and his triumphant rise to fame from RE:Brand to Big Brother's Big Mouth to Hollywood.

Chapters

My Booky Wook is divided into four sections. The title itself is in the style of the fictional Nadsat language from A Clockwork Orange; Brand explained the reference during his appearance on Have I Got News For You in December 2007.

Critical reception

The book garnered mostly positive reviews. The Sun called it "candid, funny and moving." The Observer claimed it was "better written and more entertaining than any number of the celebrity autobiographies that clog the shelves of bookshops." However, some reviews were less complimentary: Private Eye Magazine called it "dismal and masturbatory." Comedian Stewart Lee, whom Brand cited as an influence, said of the book "you can read Russell Brand's autobiography and dismiss it as rubbish if you like or you can dismiss it as rubbish without reading it, to save time." The book won the Biography of the year at the 2008 British Book Awards and the Outstanding Literary Achievement at the 2009 Spike Guys' Choice Awards.

Origins of book title

The book title "My Booky Wook" was first mentioned on the 24 September 2006 episode of his former radio show, The Russell Brand Show.

Film adaptation

Brand planned to star as himself in a film adaptation of the book, originally scheduled to be filmed by British director Michael Winterbottom at the end of 2008 or early in 2009. The project has since been shelved by Brand, who did not want American audiences to learn of his "chequered past" without reading the book first.

Sales

The book has sold more than 600,000 copies since it was released.