WITH NAILS

WITH NAILS Richard E. Grant (Overlook, $24.95) Richard E. Grant is an actor whose face, if not his name, is recognizable from a thousand supporting parts: Van Helsing's assistant in Coppola's Dracula, the outrageous designer in Pret a Porter, Anais Nin's cuckolded husband in Henry and June, the villain Darwin Mayflower in the flop Hudson Hawk, an acerbic starving actor in the 1987 cult hit Withnail and I, and the road manager in Spice World. Grant is also, as these diaries show, a witty, winning writer of real observational powers and great enthusiasm who takes neither himself nor his business too seriously. He's Cinderella in his own fairy tale, and absolutely open about it -- as open as he is about the horror of seeing himself on screen, his inability to hold his alcohol, Hugh Grant's propensity to turn every conversation into one about sex, and the early tragedy of losing a child. In other words, he's the kind of guy you'd want to sit next to at a dinner party. Reading his book is the next best thing. A- -- Vanessa V. Friedman