Product Description

Russell Brand learned early on to make a joke of fear and failure. From a troubled childhood in industrial Essex, England, to his descent into addictions to alcohol, drugs, and sex in the seamy underbelly of London, Brand has seen his share of both and miraculously lived to tell the tale. In My Booky Wook he leads readers on a rollicking journey through his disastrous school career, his infamous antics on MTV, and his multifarious sexual adventures. But this irreverent memoir is a story not simply of struggle but also of redemption, a testament to the difficulty of discovering what you want from life and the remarkable power of a bloody-minded determination to get it. My Booky Wook is a giddy trip through the brilliant mind of one of Britain's most valuable exports.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13824 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-01
• Released on: 2009-03-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780061730412
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author

Russell Brand is a comedian, journalist, TV and radio host, and actor. He captivated audiences in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and hosted the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. He has won numerous awards in Britain, including Time Out (London)'s "Comedian of the Year," "Most Stylish Man" at GQ's Men of the Year Awards, and the Sun's "Shagger of the Year." He is a frequent guest on nighttime television.

Customer Reviews

R-rated, Honest Comedy
I found *My Booky Wook* laugh-out-loud funny, but not for the faint of heart. Brand's honesty is almost child-like at times, except that he's dealing with very adult topics like depression, sex addiction, and drug use.

That honesty was precisely what made the read so compelling for me. Brand has a unique gift for non-pompous self-reflection, and refuses to bowdlerize his life just because it might offend some. His description of what it's like to take heroin deserves a place right up there with The Velvet Underground's song. It's loving and funny and unapologetic, while still acknowledging the horrific damage that addiction brings.

Brand's prose, like his personality, is deliberately flamboyant. I found myself feeling that, by all logical reasoning, I should be put off by his deliberately Dickensian flourishes. But self-knowledge saves all, and Brand combines his rococo prose with colloquial diction, self-mockery, and traces of his real, non-elite accent. In this regard, I kept thinking that Brand's style was akin to that of a very dirty P.G. Wodehouse.

The result was (dare I say it) addictive. I couldn't put the damned book down, and after finishing it I had to immediately lend it out so I wouldn't re-read it a million times.

Like all great comedians, Russell Brand turns his personal pain into comedy. Given the variety of individual senses of humor, it's impossible to guarantee that you'll find this book funny. But if you're not easily offended, you'll probably be laughing. Even if you are easily offended, you can treat this as a very honest memoir of sex and drug addiction, and be shocked that Brand tells it as a funny story.

[...] -- a site about humor and society

Cheeky, That Russell Brand Is
Russell Brand's stage show is singularly his own, and so it would follow that his prose would be similarly unconventional. I just didn't expect that it would be as good as it is.

How many working comedians have the time to write a 400+ page memoir at the outset of their careers? For that matter, who has this much to talk about happening in their lives BEFORE stardom? Russell Brand, that's who.

The writing is pretty dense with English colloquialisms, so I'm not sure how those will translate for American readers. Regardless, it's hilarious as hell, proving that Brand is a worthy successor to the outlaw comic crown previously worn by Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks.

The book's US subtitle is "Sex, Drugs, and Stand-Up". There's a fair amount of sex, but not as many drugs as you might expect (and very little stand-up, for that matter). The book starts and ends with Brand's stay in a sex addiction clinic, but judging from his recent troubles with the BBC, he hasn't quite banished all of his sexual demons. Can't wait for the sequel!

Children Do Not Need Drugs, They Have Sweets
So says Russell Brand in his surprisingly deep book, My Booky Wook. When I was in the UK during a week in December 2007, Russell Brand was an ever present force. He was about to launch his auto-biography, he had a part in a huge British film, St. Trinian's that was getting a grand release in Leicester Square and he was the hip and rogue host of a popular Radio 2 program. He was on top of the British world, I was aware of him because of my love for British entertainment, but really, how could he be so big?
First off, if you know anything about the British, you are aware that they love reality TV and make stars out of the contestants. Russell Brand found some fame as a VJ on MTV UK, an off shoot of the cultural American iconic music channel. He was able to parlay that into Big Brother and various off-shoots that hyped his fame with the tabloids. Those very same papers that build you up, really only relish the take-down and work to do just that. Russell Brand provided them with every thing they would need to destroy him.
My Booky Wook will have to go down as one of the worst titles ever given to a book that should be taken seriously. Brand is a damn fine writer, surprising my wife who picked the book up and read through a few pages. From the title and cover, I was certainly expecting the tired cliché of celebrity comic's books that are really just their retired stand-up routines jotted down to make that final dollar (think Seinlanguage or Couplehood). In reality, Brand has written a disturbing tale of woe that could occur to any child born to the British underclass. His depraved upbringing of neglect, poverty and divorce is not knew, but also not really looked at with such talented and ultimately happy eyes as Brands. This is no screed against humanity nor is it a self-pitying tome, but rather what seems to be a honest account of a life once gone wrong, righted by ambition and with the help of people that cared and could spot talent.
This is quite a book, one that the author and publisher should be proud to put to the public. The life of descending into heroin addiction and the ultimate trip to poverty row was eye-opening and when told in Brand's words, very humorous. The ability gain empathy with the reader while actually recounting the vilest of stories is a mark of an artist of high talent. Brand was very wonderful in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, so much so that he has been awarded a spin-off movie for his character. His songs on the sound track are actually very well done, meaning that Brand is simple an extra-ordinary talent, one that we are lucky to see survived and able to tell his story.

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