There and Back

Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781474612777

Price: £14.99

ON SALE: 5th June 2025

Genre: Biography & True Stories / Diaries, Letters & Journals

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THE FOURTH VOLUME OF MICHAEL PALIN’S BESTSELLING DIARIES

There and Back is a new window into the world of Michael Palin, following him as he comes and goes through the filming of four blockbuster travel documentaries and begins to publish his personal diaries for the very first time.

From TV success to writer’s block, Python reunions to lunches with Alan Bennett, the sadness of losing his good friend George Harrison to the joys of welcoming his first grandchild, these diaries document a decade of highs, lows and everything in between – all with the warmth, humour and heart for which Michael is renowned.

Reviews

The dynamic [between the Pythons] remains eternally fascinating: there's a permanent tension and endless bickering, but also a huge, unshakeable love . . . [Palin is] less of a national treasure and more of a sacred monument
Waitrose Magazine
True, this evolving series is the ultimate comfort read, but it's also much more than that: a social history of Britain spanning four decades, told with unflagging empathy and wit
Jonathan Coe, Observer
Michael Palin knows what makes a good diary . . . it's his attention to the mundane, above all, that makes his diaries so enjoyable to read
Daily Telegraph
In the fourth volume of diaries from the Monty Python alumnus, we get to hang out with this thoughtful, amusing, affectionate, intellectually curious man over a decade . . . This is full of friends (numerous, often famous), funerals and fun
Saga Magazine
A friend's foolishness, his own fears, the minutiae of preparing for an overseas expedition, Palin writes it all down, so we know what happened and so he does as well . . . Perhaps that's why diaries are such an engaging literary form. Like our own lives they veer between the everyday and the profound
Radio Times