Full Circle is the book that Michael Palin

Michael Palin

Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....

 wrote to accompany the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 TV program Full Circle with Michael Palin

Full Circle with Michael Palin

Full Circle with Michael Palin is the title of a 1997 documentary television series produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Presented by Michael Palin of Monty Python fame, Full Circle was one of a series of programmes in which Palin made unusual and interesting trips.The series...

.

This book, like the other books that Michael Palin wrote following each of his seven trips for the BBC, consists both of his text and of many photographs to illustrate the trip. All of the pictures in this book were taken by Basil Pao

Basil Pao

Basil Pao Ho-Yun is a Hong Kong-based photographer who is perhaps best known for his work as the stills photographer on the BBC filming teams that made Michael Palin's TV travel programs.-Early career:...

, the stills photographer who was part of the team who did the trip.

(Basil Pao also produced a book, Full Circle - The Photographs

Full Circle - The Photographs

Full Circle - The Photographs is a large coffee-table style book containing pictures taken by Basil Pao, who was the stills photographer on the team that made the Full Circle with Michael Palin TV program for the BBC....

, containing many more of his pictures.)

The book contains one chapter for each country/region visited, as follows: USA (Alaska), Russia (Siberia), Japan, South Korea, China (Shanghai to Vietnam), Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, USA (California), Canada (British Columbia), USA (Alaska).

To some extent the book reads like a diary, as Michael Palin starts each section of the book with a heading like "Day 43 - Huis Ten Bosch". But in a departure from the previous two books there are occasional breaks where a day is not mentioned.

This was the longest of all of Michael Palin's trips, covering 50,000 miles (80,000 km) through 17 countries in ten months.

The diversity of the many countries and places is amazing. Arctic wilderness, tropics, deserts, cramped cities, huge rivers, high mountains, etc., etc. There are many high points along the way, the most exciting being when Michael Palin had to lasso a camel while standing in the back of a pickup truck that was going over bumps and around bends at break-neck speed.

The text of this book is available free to read online on Michael Palin's official web site.

Audio edition

This book was made available as an audio book, read by Michael Palin himself, allowing the listener to hear his wit and charm, and his ability to do accents. The audio book does not include the photographs, of course. Two versions of the audio book exist, an abridged version that lasts 6 hours and an unabridged version (difficult to find) that lasts 11 hours 53 minutes.