--- title: Richard E Grant Has Written Four Books, and the Memoir of His Wife's Last Year Is the One to Read First description: Richard E Grant's four books, from With Nails to A Pocketful of Happiness, the memoir of his wife Joan's last year, and the order to read them in. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-05T12:30:00.049Z updated: 2026-11-05T12:30:00.072Z canonical: https://richbooksmagazine.com/article/richard-e-grant-books-reading-order image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/unsplash-cklhktcjzkk.webp categories: Memoir & Biography, Reading Lists content_type: Guide region: United Kingdom publication: Rich Books schema_type: Article about: - type: Person name: Richard E. Grant description: Swazi-British actor, born in Mbabane, Swaziland, in 1957, who made his film debut in Withnail and I (1987). He is the author of With Nails, By Design, The Wah-Wah Diaries and A Pocketful of Happiness. url: https://www.richard-e-grant.com jobTitle: Actor and author sameAs: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_E._Grant --- Richard E Grant joined the second series of The Celebrity Traitors this autumn, and a new audience has started looking up the man behind the scarf. Many of them do not know that he has written four books, three of them diaries, which together give a fuller picture of him than any interview. ## A Pocketful of Happiness (2022) ### Book: A Pocketful of Happiness By Richard E. Grant Richard E. Grant's memoir, written mostly as a diary in the last year of the life of his wife, the voice coach Joan Washington, who died in September 2021. The title comes from her instruction to him to find a pocketful of happiness in every day. A Sunday Times bestseller. [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1398519472) Start here. Grant wrote most of this memoir in the last year of the life of his wife, the voice coach Joan Washington, who died of lung cancer on 2nd September 2021 after 35 years of marriage. The title comes from her instruction to him to find a pocketful of happiness in every day. The book moves between two registers. One is the Grant everyone recognises: name-dropping, gossiping and thrilled by the people he meets. The other is a husband keeping a diary through his wife's illness and the months after her death. Simon & Schuster published it in the UK in 2022, and it became a Sunday Times bestseller. Read it if you know him from television and want to understand why so many people feel affection for him. Buy: [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1398519472) | [Barnes & Noble](https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-pocketful-of-happiness-richard-e-grant/1141303422?ean=9781668030844) ## With Nails: The Film Diaries of Richard E Grant (1996) ### Book: With Nails *The Film Diaries of Richard E. Grant* By Richard E. Grant Richard E. Grant's diaries from his film debut in Withnail and I through his first decade in Hollywood. [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0879518286) His first book, published by Picador, gathers the diaries he kept from his debut as Withnail in Withnail and I (1987) through his first decade in Hollywood. Grant arrived in London from Swaziland in 1982 and within a few years was on sets with Steve Martin, Bruce Willis and Francis Ford Coppola. The diaries record that jump as it happened, with the details an actor usually keeps to himself. Read it second, and especially if Withnail and I is a film you love. It also prompted a screenwriter to tell him he should write a screenplay of his own, which led to the next book. Buy: [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0879518286) ## The Wah-Wah Diaries: The Making of a Film (2006) ### Book: The Wah-Wah Diaries *The Making of a Film* By Richard E. Grant The diary Richard E. Grant kept while writing and directing Wah-Wah (2005), a film loosely based on his childhood in Swaziland, over more than seven years. [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0330441965) Grant wrote and directed Wah-Wah (2005), a film loosely based on his own childhood in Swaziland, with Nicholas Hoult, Gabriel Byrne, Miranda Richardson, Julie Walters and Emily Watson. The project took him more than seven years, and he kept a diary throughout. The result is one of the more candid accounts of how an independent film gets made. Grant writes openly about his difficult relationship with the producer, missing clearances for song rights and for filming in Swaziland, and having to meet the King of Swaziland to ask for clemency. Critics at the time singled out its honesty. Read it if you want to see how films are really made, or if you have seen Wah-Wah and want the story behind it. Buy: [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0330441965) ## By Design: A Hollywood Novel (1998) ### Book: By Design *A Hollywood Novel* By Richard E. Grant Richard E. Grant's only novel, set in Hollywood. [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/033036829X) His only novel, published by Picador, is set in the Hollywood he had been recording in his diaries. It is the one to leave until last, for readers who have finished the diaries and want more of his voice. Buy: [Amazon UK](https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/033036829X) ## The reading order A Pocketful of Happiness first, because it is the most recent, the most moving and the easiest to buy. With Nails second, for the young actor's view of fame. The Wah-Wah Diaries third, for the long fight to make a personal film. By Design last. ## His voice on audiobooks Grant is also a prolific audiobook narrator. He has read Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, Agatha Christie's The Murder at the Vicarage and Roald Dahl's George's Marvellous Medicine, and in 2025 he narrated I Regret Almost Everything, the memoir of the New York restaurateur Keith McNally. ### Audiobooks read by Richard E Grant - [The Pillars of the Earth](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=The+Pillars+of+the+Earth+Ken+Follett) by Ken Follett - [World Without End](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=World+Without+End+Ken+Follett) by Ken Follett - [The Murder at the Vicarage](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=The+Murder+at+the+Vicarage+Agatha+Christie) by Agatha Christie - [George's Marvellous Medicine](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=George%27s+Marvellous+Medicine+Roald+Dahl) by Roald Dahl - [I Regret Almost Everything](https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=I+Regret+Almost+Everything+Keith+McNally) by Keith McNally