Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two) (Paperback)

Palin reminds me of Samuel Johnson: driven, intellectually formidable, and spurred on by self-reproach and the wholly irrational idea that he's not really getting on with it . . . Palin is a seriously good writer. These diaries are full of fine phrases and sharp little sketches of scenes - DAILY MAIL

This is a brisk, pithy, amusing read, teeming with the writer's inner life, crammed with high-quality observations . . . and deft ink-pen sketches of his associates - SPECTATOR

Charming and vastly entertaining - IRISH TIMES

His entries are riddled with the astute wit and generosity of spirit that characterise both his performances and his previously published writing - TIME OUT, 'Book of the Week'

It's clear why Cleese later nominated Palin as his luxury item on Desert Island Discs . . . he makes such unfailingly good company . . . this is the agreeably written story of how a former Python laid the foundation stone by which he would reinvent himself as a public institution: the People's Palin - GUARDIAN

A fascinating and wry cultural take on the 1980s . . . it's also, when added to volume one, proving to be the most beguiling and revealing of ongoing autobiographies - SUNDAY HERALD

This is the Michael Palin with whom the public has fallen in love. A man whose ordinary likeability makes us feel we know him, and that he is incapable of nastiness or an outburst of bad temper - SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

provides humour aplenty - DAILY TELEGRAPH

There are some fabulous and very funny snippets about Alan Bennett and Maggie Smith . . . the behind-the-scenes antics of the Pythons and their wider circle make great reading - OBSERVER