Dawn French joins Super Thursday line-up with non-fiction diary

Dawn French is publishing her first non-fiction book since her 2008 autobiography Dear Fatty on Super Thursday this October.

Me You, A Diary will publish with Michael Joseph in hardback on 5th October, the same month as her 60th birthday, and will be a "unique shared diary" about "age and life as she sees it" - leaving room for the reader to add their own thoughts throughout the course of a year.

"​By the end of the year, Me.You: A Diary will be a fatter, scruffier book that is written by Dawn but totally personalised by the reader," according to Michael Joseph. 

It follows on from the writer, comedian and actor's three bestselling novels, A Tiny Bit Marvellous, Oh Dear Silvia and According to YES (Penguin).

Overall French has sold 2.37m books for £16.9m through Nielsen BookScan. Dear Fatty in hardback is her highest-selling, shifting 646,094 copies, with A Tiny Bit Marvellous her biggest fiction title with 592,905 copies sold in paperback.

Managing director Louise Moore acquired world rights from Robert Kirby at United Agents.

French said: "I can’t count the amount of diaries I have crammed full with entries in January, that then fizzle out as the other months pile in. One of my teenage diaries has fulsome fizzing reports of every single conversation, thought and feeling about every friend, every crush, every meal, every argument until mid-March, when the entry on the 18th simply reads, ‘Washed hair.’ Thank god, this isn’t that. This book is a way for us to tell the story of a year together."

Moore added: "It has been an absolute joy to work with Dawn on this very special, very different book. Spending a year in Dawn's company will be a fantastic treat for all her fans."

The date French's new book will be published also marks Super Thursday - the day when more hardbacks are published than any other in time for the Christmas market. Altogether 505 hardbacks are set to be released on that day, including Tom Fletcher’s The Creakers (Puffin) and Mary Berry’s Mary’s Household Tips & Tricks (Michael Joseph), Richard Branson’s Finding My Virginity (Virgin Books), David Jason’s Only Fools and Stories (Century), Nadiya’s Bake Me a Festive Story by “Great British Bake Off” winner Nadiya Hussain (Hodder Children’s) and Alan Hollinghurst’s The Sparsholt Affair (Picador).