Full Circle: A Pacific Journey [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Michael Palin (Author, Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1997

This is "Monty Python" alum Michael Palin's extraordinary record of his epic trip around the varied countries and landscapes of the Pacific Rim. From Cape Horn to Mexico, Seattle to Siberia, Borneo to Australia, Palin's year-long adventure is a celebration of new places and new experiences--full of all the surprises, pleasures, and lessons in life. Sure to entertain and enlighten, this audiobook ties in to the 10-part PBS broadcast of the same name. Simultaneous hardcover release from St. Martin's Press. October publication date. 4 cassettes.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Michael Palin has certainly been busy since his days with Monty Python's Flying Circus. In Full Circle, Palin and a film crew go on a year-long adventure visiting 18 countries along the Pacific Rim. The film was eventually made into a 10-part PBS series, to which this book serves as a companion. Not for nothing is this part of the world called the "Ring of Fire"; volcanoes punctuate the landscape, and Palin even climbs one still smoking from a recent eruption. But the difficult landscape is only one challenge in this at times hair-raising, at times hilarious, always fascinating journey around the world's largest ocean. In the Philippines, Palin witnesses "psychic surgery": on the Urubamba River, Palin simultaneously clings for his life to a dugout canoe as he shoots the rapids and keeps up with England's progress in the World Cup via shortwave radio.

Whether he's visiting a Gulag camp in Siberia or chowing down on maggots in Mexico, Palin meets the challenges of rough travel with grace, courage, and more than a little humor. Full Circle is fun to read, includes many color photographs from Palin's adventures, and makes a terrific addition to the armchair traveler's bookshelf. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Palin and his associates spent nearly a year touring the Pacific Rim developing and videoing a BBC program. Beginning on a small northern island, the group circles through 18 countries bordering the Pacific Ocean. In each area, Palin highlights something unique, such as slave labor camps or volcanoes. Palin's prior affiliation with Monty Python's Flying Circus has made him well known in the UK, but less so in the United States. Reading his day-by-day record of the journey, he includes personal feelings, anxieties, and thrills. The material, personalized with his creative viewpoint, is often intriguing. Despite publicity-laden acts like eating maggots with natives, he shows himself to be an intelligent, relatively normal, worried father and loving husband. His English pronunciations are generally understood from the context, except when he speaks of going to see geezers: most Americans will fail to fathom for approximately two (amusing) minutes that he is talking about geysers. Overall, he is an excellent reader, with a strong, clear voice and meaningful phrasing. The journey is so extensive that no subject receives any in-depth coverage, but the content is generally interesting. Libraries with devout armchair travelers should consider this well-written diary of an unusual trek. Recommended.?Carolyn Alexander, Brigadoon Lib., Salinas, CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Random House Audio (September 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553479423
• ISBN-13: 978-0553479423
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,411,727 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An enlightning tour of the Pacific Rim countries., August 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Full Circle: One Man's Journey by Air, Train, Boat and Occasionally Very Sore Feet Around the 20.000 Miles of the Pacific Rim (Hardcover)

Michael Palin does it again with Full Circle. Starting in Alaska Michael travels anti-clockwise around the rim of the Pacific Ocean visiting countries as diverse as Russia, Korea, Viet Nam, New Zealand, Colombia and the west coast of North American. He tells of his adventures getting to and exploring some fantastic natural wonders, visiting a Russian gulag with a former inmate, the relief of Japan, the Vietnamese reactions to a westerner, the biggness of Australia and the hardworking people of South America. The section on the United States is short and not always sweet. Palin is taken aback by the physical bigness of Americans, and rush, and loudness. By the time he reaches Canada and attends a "lumberjack" fair (no singing Mounties included!) he really "wants to go home". We also learn a bit about how the series and book were produced, his wife Helen and their children, and that being on a job for the BBC doesn't always mean smooth sailing! Michael's friend Basil Pao took the photographs - he also joined Michael on "Around the World in Eighty Days". I can highly recommend this book and not only to fans of Monty Python - it doesn't end how you might expect!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Arnold Rimmer, October 26, 2002

By 

R Bell (Dun Eideann/Edinburgh Scotland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Full Circle (Hardcover)

As always Palin has produced a great travel book and series... this I found better than his "80 Days". The other thing people might find interesting about this travel book is that it takes us to some places which are hard to reach even in this day and age, so this is the only way we can know them.

Also suggested- "Hemingway Adventure"

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful, February 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Full Circle: One Man's Journey by Air, Train, Boat and Occasionally Very Sore Feet Around the 20.000 Miles of the Pacific Rim (Hardcover)

If you love to read about exciting and exotic places, this is your book. If you like history, this is your book. If you like Michael Palin, this is your book. If you just like to read, THIS IS YOUR BOOK. I suggest you read the book first and THEN see the video series (although either stands perfectly well alone).