Around the World in 80 Days - Hardcover

Palin, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0563208260 ISBN 13: 9780563208266

Publisher: BBC Books, 1989

In the autumn of 1988 Michael Palin set out from the Reform Club to circumnavigate the world, following the route taken by Phileas Fogg 115 years earlier. He had to make the journey in 80 days - accompanied by a BBC film crew - using only forms of transport that would have been available to Fogg. Their voyage took them from the opulence of the Orient Express to the stench of a Venetian refuse-collecting boat; from the lurching progress of an Egyptian camel called Michael to the heights of a hot-air balloon over Aspen,Colorado. Palin was attacked by a parrot in Hong Kong, given a close shave by an apparently blind Indian barber and accepted into the Brotherhood of Mariners by King Neptune himself - all recorded by the BBC film crew and resulting in a six-part television series on BBC1. This book is the story of, and the story behind, the making of that television series.

Review:

The first of Palin's highly acclaimed travel trilogy, Around the World in 80 Days finds the former Monty Python comic swapping his dead parrot for his rucksack, and setting off in the footsteps of Jules Verne's intrepid traveller, Phileas Fogg. In 1872 Fogg set off from The Reform Club in London on an 80-day journey around the globe which took him through southern Europe, the Middle East, China and the USA.

Palin's journey is no less hectic and incident-packed than his illustrious predecessor, as he pursues Fogg in an increasingly frenetic attempt to get back to the Reform Club within the allotted 80 days. Along the way we are treated to Palin's trademark traveller's tales and bizarre journeys, from the idyllic but at times traumatic medieval boat journey across the Indian Ocean, to dog-sledding and ballooning across the USA. Some of the finest sections come with Palin's often hilarious accounts of cultural confusion encountered throughout India and the Far East. Around the World in 80 Days is full of what has made Palin such a popular and enjoyable travel writer: wry, humorous, but ultimately humane observations on the world's foibles, and the pleasure and pains of travelling. --Jerry Brotton

Book Description:

The first of Michael Palin's travel adventures in a new, completely redesigned and updated edition.

• Publisher: BBC Books
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0563208260
• ISBN 13: 9780563208266
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256