Showing results by narrator "Michael Palin" in All Categories

In his most challenging journey to date, Palin tackles the Himalayas, the greatest mountain range on earth. It is a virtually unbroken wall of rock stretching 1,800 miles from the borders of Afghanistan to south-west China. Penetrated but never conquered, it remains the world's most majestic natural barrier, a magnificent wilderness that shapes the history and politics of Asia to this day.

Michael Palin's epic voyages have seen him circumnavigate the globe, travel from the North to the South Pole, and circle the countries of the Pacific Ocean, but perhaps the greatest single challenge he has faced is his latest: a crossing of the vast and merciless Sahara Desert. As the journey unfolds, the Sahara reveals not only the emptiness of endless sand dunes, but a huge and diverse range of cultures and landscapes, and a long history of civilisation, trade, commerce, and conquest.

In the autumn of 1988, Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club with an ambitious plan: to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Jules Verne's fictional hero Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier. The rules were simple. He had to make the journey in 80 days using only forms of transport that would have been available to Fogg.

In Pole to Pole we join Michael Palin on the second of his epic challenges. Travelling from the North Pole to the South Pole, he experiences every extreme the globe has to offer. As he crosses 16 countries by train, truck, raft, Ski-Doo, barge, balloon and bicycle, he meets a diverse range of fascinating characters and landscapes while his own endurance is tested to the limit. With his customary aplomb, he plunges himself into the local cultures, starring in a crayfish documentary in Novgorod, attending a baby-rolling ceremony at a Cypriot wedding, and consulting an Mpulugu witch-doctor.

Michael Palin reads his own account of a journey into a new Europe. Michael Palin's New Europe starts with a simple idea: that only a couple of hours from home are a half of Europe that is for him as unknown and unexplored as the plateau of Tibet or the vastness of the Sahara. Cut off for most of his life by Cold Wars and Iron Curtains, Europe's eastern lands are now open for business - and Michael sets off to discover them.

The third and most ambitious of Michael Palin's adventures is a voyage of epic proportions - the circumnavigation of the Pacific Rim. He travels for almost a year through the 18 countries that border the world's largest ocean, and is forced to negotiate mountains, plunging gorges, cross glaciers and dodge icebergs. Volcanoes also mark Palin's journey. He climbs one which has freshly erupted and follows great rivers like the Yangtze and the Amazon to some of the most remote places on earth.

Brought to you by Penguin. THE BOOK BEHIND THE HIT CHANNEL 5 DOCUMENTARY A glimpse of life inside the world’s most secretive country, as told by Britain’s best-loved travel writer. In May 2018, former Monty Python stalwart and intrepid globetrotter Michael Palin spent two weeks in the...

THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER FEATURES 75 STORIES NARRATED BY THEIR AUTHORS Curated and edited by Adam Kay (author of multi-million bestseller This is Going to Hurt), Dear NHS features household names telling their personal stories of the health service. Contributors include Paul...

Ukrainian-born humorist, dramatist and novelist Nikolai Gogol is widely believed to have led the realist revolution in Russian literature. His surreal, absurdist satires liberated comedy from its sentimental traditions and influenced writers both within Russia and worldwide, among them Fyodor Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka and Flannery O’Connor.

This is the second series of one-off comedies written by the genius behind the smash-hit radio sitcom “Cabin Pressure” – John Finnemore. The first series won the coveted Writers Guild of Great Britain award for Best Comedy. Each show is a comedy perfumed by just two actors - including...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Erebus, written and read by Michael Palin. N_______________ THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER In the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, HMS Erebus undertook two of the most ambitious naval expeditions of all time. On the first, she ventured further...

Michael Palin reads this classic adventure by W. E. Johns, featuring pilot-adventurer James ‘Biggles’ Bigglesworth When Biggles receives a letter from an old wartime chum asking for help, he responds at once. With his comrades, Algy, Ginger and Flight Sergeant Smyth, our hero flies to Fort...

One spring day, Mole peers out from his underground home to find a marvellous world awaits him. As the seasons pass, he picnics on the riverbank with Ratty, accompanies Toad on a chaotic caravan adventure, and even braves the snowy depths of the fearsome Wild Wood in search of Badger. But when Toad's mischievous ways finally land him in trouble, can his friends come to his rescue and recapture Toad Hall from a gang of sneaky stoats and wheedling weasels?

Brought to you by Penguin. Some years ago a stash of family records was handed down to Michael Palin, among which were photos of an enigmatic young man in army uniform, as well as photos of the same young man as a teenager looking uncomfortable at family gatherings. This, Michael learnt, was his...

Brought to you by Penguin. In March 2022, Michael Palin travelled the length of the River Tigris through Iraq to get a sense of what life is like in a region of the world that once formed the cradle of civilisation, but that in recent times has witnessed turmoil and appalling bloodshed. It was a...

In his latest voyage of discovery, Michael Palin reads his own account of a journey into a "new" Europe. He starts with a simple idea: that only a couple of hours from home is a half of Europe that is for him as unknown and unexplored as the plateau of Tibet or the vastness of the Sahara.

"The Voyages of Sinbad" from the Arabian Nights - Sinbad is a Baghdad merchant who acquires great wealth by going on seven voyages. He describes these to a poor discontented porter, Hinbad, to show him that wealth can only be obtained by enterprise and personal exertion. The Jungle Book - Animal stories set in India. The central figure is a human boy, Mowgli, brought up by a wolf as her cub and instructed in the lore of the jungle. "The Flying Trunk". A tale of a magical trunk that allows the owner to go wherever they wish.

Just So Stories - Amusing and fanciful answers to questions of how animals obtained their individual characteristics. "How the Alphabet Was Made"; "How the Camel Got His Hump"; How the First Letter Was Written"; "The Butterfly That Stamped"; "The Cat That Walked by Himself"; "The Crab That Played with the Sea"; "The Elephant's Child"; "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangeroo"; "How the Leopard Got His Spots"; "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin"; "How the Whale Got His Throat"; "The Beginning of the Armadillos".

Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones star in this innovative and groundbreaking series which includes 19 of their best sketches. From the memorable 'Nudge Nudge Wink Wink' to the celebrated 'Dead Parrot Sketch', there’s also the hairdresser...

Michael Palin journeys to a vast country of unimaginable contrasts - Brazil. An economic powerhouse, it is host to a staggering variety of peoples. He starts his journey in the north, in the remote mountains and forests on the border with Venezuela, and finishes in the south at the legendary Iguaçu Falls. He travels by river-boat, float-plane and foot to visit tribes deep in the jungle, samples life in the agricultural and mining heartland of Brazil, experiences the modernism of Brasília and the heady mix of Rio de Janeiro, and ventures into the favelas.