In the words of the book’s publisher, Random House, All About Me! “charts Mel Brooks’ meteoric rise from a Depression-era kid in Brooklyn to the recipient of the National Medal of Arts.” As for the books that have influenced Brooks during his “Remarkable Life in Showbusiness,” he had a lot to say about the comedy chops of the Russians: “One of the funniest books I ever read is called The Twelve Chairs. I liked it so much I made a movie of it! The book was written by two young Russian writers, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, and it’s a crazy picaresque adventure set during the turbulent times immediately following the Russian Revolution.”
His take on Twelve Chairs was one of 18 different film adaptations of the Soviet classic, but Brooks’ movie was the only one to feature a disturbingly dreamy Frank Langella.
UMC Pictures
When Brooks was asked, “What’s the best book you’ve ever received as a gift?” he again deferred to our friends from the Motherland, saying, “The book was Dead Souls, by the magnificent genius Nikolai Gogol. It was a revelation. I’d never read anything like it. It was hysterically funny and incredibly moving at the same time. It’s like Gogol stuck a pen in his heart, and it didn’t even go through his mind on its way to the page. It truly raised the bar of what I considered to be important writing. It was a life-changing gift, and I still read it once a year to remind myself of what great comic writing can be.”