Sometimes in life, you just want to turn it up to 11. Why? Because it’s one more than 10.

A band that not only always wanted to turn it all the way up to 11, but in fact invented the now popular idiom, is British rockers Spinal Tap in their iconic rock mockumentary This is Spinal Tap.

This book by Rob Reiner, who played up and coming film director Marty DiBergi in the 1984 classic, as well as directing the mockumentary itself, is a satisfying account of how it got made.

It tells the story of how American comedians Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer came up with the fictitious British band, for a film project that saw Spinal Tap be followed around by DiBergi and his film crew on what would be a very eventful tour.

For Reiner, it was his first foray into directing, having been an actor up until this point in his career, playing the popular character Michael ‘Meathead’ Stivic in the hugely successful seventies US comedy show All in the Family. It was a move that wasn’t as easy as it seemingly is now, and the project was a struggle to get off the ground, despite his fame on TV.

With a budget of only $2 million they did manage to shoot the film, and despite the fact it follows the band on tour, it was all shot in Los Angeles.

Unfortunately for them, many of those that saw it, especially the studio execs, just didn’t get it. To them, it was just a rockumentary about a British band that no one had heard of. Little did they know how groundbreaking the film would be, because without it, there would have been no shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation, that stole the mockumentary style that Reiner and the ‘band’ had created, which lead to their own success.

The film has since gone on to become a true classic, as well as being one of the very few comedies chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the Library of Congress, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically” significant.

This is a wonderful behind-the-scenes account, written in a warm and amiable style by Reiner, as he explains how the film finally got managed to be made, as well as how it was received on its release, offering an insight from many of the bands around at the time at just how close to the bone the Spinal tap experience was to their own.

There’s a fun gimmick element to the book too, at least its physical release, in that it’s reversible; turn the book around (no, back to front silly, and upside down) and you are presented with Smell the Book: an Oral History of Spinal Tap written, in character, by director Marty DiBergi, as he sits down in discussion with the band, in what transpires to be a highly amusing encounter.

If the music/film fan in your life already has an amp that goes to 11 – and yes, they do now exist thanks to the film – this book will make the perfect companion.