Michael Palin Books In Order

Publication Order of Palin Diaries Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Plays

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Chronicles Abroad Books

Publication Order of Monty Python Books

Publication Order of A Pocketful of Python Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Michael Palin
Sir Michael Edward Palin, KCMG, CBE, FRGS is an English actor, comedian, writer, and television presenter that is best known for being a member of Monty Python and also for his travel documentaries.

He was born in Broomhill, Sheffield on May 5, 1943, the only son and the second child of Mary Rachel Lockhart and Edward Moreton Palin. He was educated at Shrewsbury and Birkdale School. Angela, his sister, was nine years older than him, despite this age difference the two had a close relationship until her suicide in the year 1987.

Palin, when he was just five years old, had his very first acting experience at Birkdale where he played Martha Cratchit in a school performance of A Christmas Carol. When he was ten, he, while still interested in acting, made a comedy monologue and read a Shakespeare play to his mom while he played all the parts.

After he left Shrewsbury in the year 1962, he went on to read modern history at Brasenose College, Oxford. With Robert Hewison (one of his fellow students) he wrote, performed, for the first time, comedy material at a university Christmas party. Terry Jones, who was also an Oxford student, saw this performance and started writing with Palin and Hewison.

That same year, he joined the Brightside and Carbrook Co-operative Society Players and first gained a bit of fame when he won an acting award at a Co-op drama festival. He also wrote and performed in the Oxford Revue (which was called the Et ceteras) with Jones.

Palin wrote the majority of his material with Terry Jones. Before Monty Python, they worked on other programs like The Frost Report, Do Not Adjust Your Set, and The Ken Dodd Show.

After Python, he started a new career as a travel writer. He appeared as a presenter in a series of travel programs for the BBC beginning in the year 1989. After Alan Whicker and Miles Kington each turned down presenting the first one, “Around he World in 80 Days with Michael Palin”, Palin was given the chance to present his first travel show as well as the later ones.

After each of his trips, he wrote a book detailing his travels and including insights and information that aren’t included in the television program. His journeys have taken him across the world, to places like the Sahara desert, the North and South Poles, the Himalayas, and Eastern Europe.

In the year 2000, he became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to television. For his work in “A Fish Called Wanda”, he won the BAFTA for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He was voted the 30th favorite by fellow comedy insiders and comedians, in a 2005 poll to find The Comedian’s Comedian.

Michael married Helen Gibbins in the year 1966, whom he first met on holiday in Southwold in Suffolk in 1959. It is a meeting that he later fictionalized in his teleplay for the 1987 BBC television drama called “East of Ipswich”. The couple have three kids and four grandkids.

“Hemingway’s Chair” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 1995. Martin Sporale is a modern Walter Mitty. He is the assistant postmaster in the coastal town of Threston, he lives with his mom and rides his bike to work every day. It is a pleasant yet uneventful kind of life, marked only by Martin’s growing fascination with the works, life, and personal style of Ernest Hemingway. Martin’s turned his room into a sort of shrine to Hemingway, complete with a bullfighting poster, the same exact sort of typewriter he used, and many first editions. He even has a vintage WWI Italian army first-aid cabinet that he liked to drink.

Two things occur that wreck his equilibrium. First, one corporate style postal manager takes the job that should have rightfully been Martin’s, quickly starting a campaign of modernization and privatization that threatens everything Martin has held dear. Second, one American woman outbids him on some Hemingway memorabilia, just some scholar and not even a fan of his work.

Ruth Kohler lives in seclusion close by as she works on a book about the women in Hemingway’s life. Ruth and Martin get into some increasingly heated role-playing while the fight over Threston’s post office heats up. Deprived of his job, his cozy world crashing down all around him, he finds himself acting more and more like the he-man author than he ever believed possible.

“The Truth” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2012. Keith Mabbut is currently at a crossroads in life. After finding some early success as a writer, he currently has been a pen for hire, just finding work where and when he can. He and his wife separated and his daughter and son are each grown up. Then he gets offered up the chance of a lifetime, to write the biography of the ever elusive Hamish Melville, who is a highly influential humanitarian and activist. It isn’t just that this offer comes with the promise of a rich financial reward, but it also is the chance to write something that is truly meaningful.

His quest to learn the true story behind this legend leads Keih to Orissa, the jungle, and some environmental hotspots in India. The more he learns about Melville, the more he admires, and he also connects more with the man that he once was, an idealist that wanted to make a difference. Slowly, Melville takes Keith into his confidence and finally agrees to do the book, and is going to give Keith information and introduce him to his friends.

However once Keith has the first draft ready to go, the publisher reveals that their version of ‘the truth’ is much different from the story Keith’s write. They point to certain shady dealings in Hamish’s past and it soon becomes crystal clear that possibly Melville hasn’t always been as pure like he seems. Or is he? While Keith gets torn between his obligations as a writer and his admiration for the man, he discovers that the truth can be what we make it.