100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

Overnight NZ-wide delivery on in-stock orders πŸš€

David Mitchell: Back Story

3.82 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 9,409 ratings, 686 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
David Mitchell: Back Story is a witty and engaging memoir by British comedian David Mitchell. The book provides an introspective look into his life, from his awkward childhood and school days to his rise in the world of television and comedy. Filled with humour and personal anecdotes, it offers a candid glimpse into the challenges and triumphs that shaped his career and character.
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2100
Elsewhere:
$2299
OVERNIGHT NZ-WIDE DELIVERY

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this Biography & Memoir if you're interested in a witty, self-deprecating journey through the life of a comedian. It offers a candid and humorous exploration of personal highs and lows, including amusing anecdotes and behind-the-scenes insights into the world of comedy and television.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

David Mitchell, who you may know for his inappropriate anger on every TV panel show except Never Mind the Buzzcocks, his look of permanent discomfort on C4 sex comedy Peep Show, his online commenter-baiting in The Observer or just for wearing a stick-on moustache in That Mitchell and Webb Look, has written a book about his life.

The autobiography

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

David Mitchell, who you may know for his inappropriate anger on every TV panel show except Never Mind the Buzzcocks, his look of permanent discomfort on C4 sex comedy Peep Show, his online commenter-baiting in The Observer or just for wearing a stick-on moustache in That Mitchell and Webb Look, has written a book about his life.

As well as giving a specific account of every single time he's scored some smack, this disgusting memoir also details:

  • The singular, pitbull-infested charm of the FRP (β€˜Flat Roofed Pub’)
  • The curious French habit of injecting everyone in the arse rather than the arm
  • Why, by the time he got to Cambridge, he really, really needed a drink
  • The pain of being denied a childhood birthday party at McDonalds
  • The satisfaction of writing jokes about suicide
  • How doing quite a lot of walking around London helps with his sciatica
  • Trying to pretend he isn’t a total at Robert Webb’s wedding
  • That he has fallen in love a LOT, but rarely done anything about it
  • Why it would be worse to bump into Michael Palin than Hitler on holiday
  • That he’s not David Mitchell the novelist, despite what David Miliband might think

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

David Mitchell: Back Story is praised for capturing the author's distinctive geeky charm akin to his television presence. Reviewers highlight its fluency, intelligence, and humour, with particular emphasis on its enjoyable storytelling. Readers familiar with his TV persona are likely to appreciate the book's entertaining narrative style.

Book Hero reading reviews

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780007351749

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 23 May 2013

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: HarperCollins

Illustration: (2x8pp plates)

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 22.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 270g

Pages: 336

About the Author

David Mitchell is a British actor, comedian and writer. He is half of the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb alongside Robert Webb, whom he met at Cambridge University. Together the duo star in the sitcom Peep Show in which Mitchell plays Mark Corrigan. Mitchell is a frequent participant on British panel shows, including QI and Have I Got News For You.

Also by David Mitchell

View all
  • Unruly
    A seriously FUNNY, seriously CLEVER history of our early kings and queens by one of our favourite comedians and cultural commentators. This will be the most refreshing, entertaining history of England you'll have ever read. Certainly, the funniest. Because David Mitchell will explain how it is not all names, dates or ungraspable historical headwinds, but instead show how it's really...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    Backorder
    Ships early August
  • Cloud Atlas
    In Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, a complex tapestry of interwoven narratives unfolds across different time periods and locations, each story impacting the others in profound and unexpected ways. The tale begins in 1850 with a reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific Ocean and follows a disinherited composer striving to make his mark in pre-World War II Belgium. Later, readers are...
    Paperback
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Dishonesty is the Second-Best Policy
    Mitchell is an exceptionally clever, eloquent and spot-on commentator. We should be grateful for him. - Daily Mail David Mitchell's 2014 bestseller Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse must really have made people think - because everything's got worse. We've gone from UKIP surge to Brexit shambles, from horsemeat in lasagne to Donald Trump in the White House, from...
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Ghostwritten
    Winner of the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. A magnificent achievement and an engrossing experience, David Mitchell's first novel announced the arrival of one of the most exciting writers of the twenty-first century. An apocalyptic cult member carries out a gas attack on a rush-hour metro, but what links him to a jazz buff in downtown Tokyo? Or to...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse
    What's wrong with calling a burglar brave? Why are people so f*ing hung up about swearing? Why do the asterisks in that sentence make it okay? Why do so many people want to stop other people doing things, and how can they be stopped from stopping them? Why is every film and TV programme a sequel or a remake? Why...
    Paperback
    $2600
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • number9dream
    number9dream by David Mitchell tells the story of Eiji Miyake, who arrives in a sprawling Japanese metropolis to track down the father he has never met. The city proves to be a mapless place if you are 18, broke, and the only person you can trust is John Lennon. His eight-week hunt delves into the hinterland between the city and...
    Paperback
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
    The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller, from the author of CLOUD ATLAS and THE BONE CLOCKS. Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010 In your hands is a place like no other: a tiny, man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki, for two hundred years the sole gateway between Japan and the West. Here, in the dying days of the...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Utopia Avenue
    β€˜ONE OF THE MOST BRILLIANTLY INVENTIVE WRITERS OF THIS, OR ANY, COUNTRY’ Independent The Number One Sunday Times Bestseller β€˜Wildly entertaining’ Spectator β€˜A stand-out triumph’ Sunday Times β€˜Superb’ Literary Review β€˜Impressive’ New Yorker β€˜Highly entertaining’ Times Literary Supplement A story of music and dreams, drugs and madness, love and grief, from the acclaimed author of Cloud Atlas The year is...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Bone Clocks
    A metaphysical thriller, meditation on mortality, and chronicle of our self-devouring times, this is the kaleidoscopic new novel from the author of Cloud Atlas. LONG LISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2014 One drowsy summer's day in 1984, teenage runaway Holly Sykes encounters a strange woman who offers a small kindness in exchange for 'asylum'. Decades will pass before Holly...
    Paperback
    $2799
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • An Introduction to Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
    Highly Commended, BMA Medical Book Awards 2015 An Introduction to Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery encompasses the full range of oral and maxillofacial surgery. It also addresses the necessary core competencies for undergraduates and those pursuing basic specialist training. The second edition now includes international perspectives. In the UK, oral and maxillofacial surgery is a unique disciplineβ€”the ninth of ten currently...
    Paperback
    $21200
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Diversities in Education
    Diversities in Education is a challenging text that will help educators, teacher educators, and trainee teachers become more effective in teaching a range of diverse learners. It covers five major categories of difference: sex and gender; social class and socio-economic status; race, ethnicity, and culture; beliefs and religion; and different abilities. The book asks the urgent questions all policy-makers, educators,...
    Paperback
    $8699
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Diversities in Education
    Diversities in Education is a challenging text that will help educators, teacher educators, and trainee teachers to be more effective in teaching a range of diverse learners. It covers five major categories of difference: sex and gender; social class and socio-economic status; race, ethnicity and culture; beliefs and religion; and different abilities. It asks the urgent questions all policy-makers, educators,...
    Hardback
    $31800
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

More from Biography & Memoir

View all
  • This Angry Pen of Mine
    This Angry Pen of Mine by Layne Staley invites you to dive into the untold creative world of Layne Staley, the legendary voice behind Alice in Chains. This extraordinary collection showcases his handwritten lyrics, deeply personal poetry, stunning original artwork, rare photos, fan tributes, and so much more. Step into the world of Layne Staley like never before. For the...
    Hardback
    $7299
    Elsewhere:
    $8999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Famesick
    Chronicling the tumultuous decade between the premiere of Girls to her 2021 shotgunΒ wedding (minus the baby, because she has no uterus), Lena Dunham takes us through herΒ journey with her trademark mix of humor, unsparing honesty, and keen eye for detail. We peek behind the scenes - of her work, her family, her relationships, and her battle to reclaim her body...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3500
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Dogs, Boys and Other Things I've Cried About
    From the social media superstar behind @SimonSits, Isabel Klee--known for her heartwarming tales of dog rescue--comes an utterly winning memoir about a twentysomething woman's search for true love in New York City and the dogs who helped her find it. A Jersey girl by birth, Isabel Klee had always wanted to live in New York City. At age 20, she...
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Signed Copy
    New Release
    Stakes
    Read our interview with author Noelle McCarthy! A darkly funny, sparkling follow-up to the author’s bestselling memoirΒ Grand. You have to invite him in. You have to want the vampire’s badness in the house with you. Growing up in Catholic Ireland, Noelle McCarthy is captivated by Bram Stoker’sΒ Dracula. The vampire is a risk-free fantasy, a suave alternative to the fraught realities...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Built for This
    Raised among strong women, butcher's benches, and hard ideas about what men are meant to be, Brad Poulter grows up knowing he's different long before he has the words for it. But in late '90s small-town New Zealand, 'different' isn't discussed, it's managed. Joining the Royal New Zealand Navy offers escape, certainty, and belonging. The rules are clear, the uniform...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Even the Good Girls Will Cry
    Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a fan letter to a P.O. box, Melissa Auf der Maur's first band scored an opening slot for the Smashing Pumpkins in her bohemian home town, Montreal. Sensing Melissa's talent, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love. Whisked from her local scene, Melissa joined Hole just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    An Ocean and a Day
    An utterly riveting, moving and poignant memoir of grief and loss that will speak to anyone who's ever lost someone they love. An Ocean and a Day is Hannah Richell's personal account of losing her husband, Matt, in a surfing accident on Tamarama beach in 2014. It is the story of the grief journey she travelled over the first two...
    Paperback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    A Place to Stand
    A Place to Stand by Clare Ward is a profound memoir that delves into the life of a country doctor living and working in the Hokianga Harbour area in the far north of Aotearoa New Zealand. This region is sparsely populated and poses numerous health challenges. This thoughtful account details Clare’s thirty-year career, highlighting the people she works with and...
    Hardback
    $3199
    Elsewhere:
    $3799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Rory
    TheΒ New York TimesΒ bestseller The #1Β Irish TimesΒ bestseller The definitive biography of Rory McIlroy, the most important, popular and confounding player of the post-Tiger era. Rory McIlroy contains multitudes. The child of a working-class family from a small town in a war-torn homeland now commutes to work in his own private jet and counts billionaires as confidants. He can overwhelm a golf...
    Paperback
    $3699
    Elsewhere:
    $4199
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Te Kaikaukau | The Swimmer
    Novelist, memoirist and playwright Witi Ihimaera – author of Pounamu, Pounamu and The Whale Rider – decided, at the age of eighty, to dive back into the water and spend a year full-time at Te Wānanga Takiura, immersing himself in his own language, in te reo Māori. This book tells the story of this kaikaukau, this swimmer, and his year...
    Paperback
    $3500
    Elsewhere:
    $4500
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    This Is Me: A Reckoning
    This is a searingly honest and moving memoir from double Golden Globe-nominatedactress Hayden Panettiere. Hayden Panettiere has been in front of the camera since before she could talk. She roseto stardom typecasted as Hollywood's blonde girl next door. As a young celebrity,naysayers were certain she would crash and burn. Not one to disappoint, she did.Hayden Panettiere's irreverent memoir satisfies our...
    Paperback
    $3200
    Elsewhere:
    $3999
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    Beyond Life and Death
    From martial arts icon and global film star Jet Li comes a revelatory, profound and inspiring guide to self-mastery and spiritual wisdom, distilled into 10 essential life lessons. Martial arts legend and international movie star Jet Li distils 10 powerful insights from his iconic career, his personal life and philosophies, and his 30-year Buddhist practice. Jet Li's story defies legend....
    By Jet Li
    Paperback
    $3299
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.