Vienna ? Crowds of people have crammed into a bookstore amid tight security to attend the launch of an Austrian kidnap victim’s account of her 8 1/2-year ordeal.

Natascha Kampusch was 10 when she was abducted on her way to school. She was held in an underground cell in a Vienna suburb until she escaped in August 2006. Her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, committed suicide soon after she got away.

As guards kept watch, people young and old listened attentively and applauded Thursday as Kampusch read extracts from her new book — titled “3,096 days” — and explained that she wrote it to start a new life.

In the account, which went on sale earlier this week, the now 22-year-old says she was repeatedly beaten, starved and forced to do housework half-naked.