Recommendations based on "David Mitchell: Back Story"

The amazingly insightful, funny and brilliant record of Michael Palin's prime years as a member of the famed comedic group, Monty Python.Michael Palin has kept a diary since newly married in the late 1960s. This volume of his diaries reveals how Python emerged and triumphed, how he, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, the two Terrys---Jones and Gilliam---and Eric Idle came together and changed the face of British comedy.But this is but only part of Palin's story. Here is his growing family, his home in a north London Victorian terrace, which grows as he buys the house next door and then a second at the bottom of the garden; here, too, is his solo effort---as an actor, in Three Men in a Boat, his writing endeavours (often in partnership with Terry Jones) that produces Ripping Yarns and even a pantomime.Meanwhile Monty Python refuses to go away: the hugely successful movies that follow the TV (his account of the making of both The Holy Grail and the Life of Brian movies are page-turners), the at times extraordinary goings-on of the many powerful personalities who coalesced to form the Python team, the fight to prevent an American TV network from bleeping out the best jokes on U.S. transmission, and much more---all this makes for funny and riveting reading.The birth and childhood of his three children, his father's growing disability, learning to cope as a young man with celebrity, his friendship with George Harrison, and all the trials of a peripatetic life are also essential ingredients of these diaries. A perceptive and funny chronicle, the diaries are a rich portrait of a fascinating period."A wealth of fascinating stuff about Monty Python."---The Independent (UK)

Manorism is a poetic examination of the lives of Black British men and boys: propped up and hemmed in by contemporary masculinity, deepened by family, misrepresented in the media, and complicated by the riches, and the costs, of belonging and inheritance. It is also an exploration of the differences of impunity afforded to white and Black people, and to white and Black artists.Caravaggio - originally, unexpectedly - looms large: as a man who moved between spheres of exalted patronage and petty criminality; as a painter who, amid the elegant conventions of late Mannerism, forged his own style of visceral dark and light; and as an individual whose recognized genius was allowed to legitimate and excuse his violence.In this profound and moving debut, Yomi Sode asks: what does it mean to find oneself between worlds - to 'code-switch', adapting one's speech and manners to widely differing cultural contexts? Who is, and who isn't, allowed to be more than their origins? And what do we owe each other? What do we owe ourselves?

Lemony Snicket's work is filled with bitter truths, like: 'It is always cruel to laugh at people, of course, although sometimes if they are wearing an ugly hat it is hard to control yourself.' Or: 'It is very easy to say that the important thing is to try your best, but if you are in real trouble the most important thing is not trying your best, but getting to safety.'For all of life's ups and downs, its celebrations and its sorrows, here is a book to commemorate it all – especially for those not fully soothed by chicken soup. Witty and irreverent, Horseradish is a book with universal appeal, a delightful vehicle to introduce Snicket's uproariously unhappy observations to a crowd not yet familiar with the Baudelaires' misadventures.

The magnificent second novel from the legendary author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's NestFollowing the astonishing success of his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey wrote what Charles Bowden calls "one of the few essential books written by an American in the last half century." This wild-spirited tale tells of a bitter strike that rages through a small lumber town along the Oregon coast. Bucking that strike out of sheer cussedness are the Stampers. Out of the Stamper family's rivalries and betrayals Ken Kesey has crafted a novel with the mythic impact of Greek tragedy.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

When J. the narrator, George, Harris and Montmorency the dog set off on their hilarious misadventures, they can hardly predict the troubles that lie ahead with tow-ropes, unreliable weather-forecasts, imaginary illnesses, butter pats and tins of pineapple chunks. Denounced as vulgar by the literary establishment, Three Men in a Boat nevertheless caught the spirit of the times. The expansion of education and the increase in office workers created a new mass readership, and Jerome's book was especially popular among the 'clerking classes' who longed to be 'free from that fretful haste, that vehement striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of nineteenth-century life.'So popular did it prove that Jerome reunited his heroes for a bicycle tour of Germany. Despite some sharp, and with hindsight, prophetic observations of the country, Three Men on the Bummel describes an equally picaresque journey constrained only 'by the necessity of getting back within a given time to the point from which one started'.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

James Herriot's third volume of delightful veterinary memoirsWith two years experience behind him, James Herriot still feels privileged working on the beautiful Yorkshire moors as assistant vet at the Darrowby practice. Time to meet yet more unwilling patients and a rich cast of supporting owners. Full of hilarious tales of his unpredictable boss Siegfreid Farnon, his charming student brother Tristan, the joys of spring lambing, a vicious cat called Boris and James' jinxed courtship of the lovely Helen, this third volume of memoirs is sure to delight hardened fans and new readers of James Herriot titles alike. 'He can tell a good story against himself, and his pleasure in the beauty of the countryside in which he works is infectious' Daily Telegraph 'Full of warmth, wisdom and wit' The Field 'It is a pleasure to be in James Herriot's company' Observer

Fifteen-year-old Spud's 1991 diary reflects ongoing concerns about his manhood and his weird family, boarding school adventures of the Crazy Eight, a disastrous theater performance, and the joys and perils of having two beautiful women in his life.

“Kennedy's justly acclaimed Albany Cycle [is] one of the imperishable products of American literature since the Second World War. These books can be read singly or in sequence, but read they must be. Kennedy is one of our necessary writers.”—GQ  Legs inaugurated William Kennedy’s celebrated cycle of novels set in Albany, New York. True to both life and myth. Legs evokes the flamboyant career of the legendary gangster Jack “Legs” Diamond, who was finally murdered in Albany, and his showgirl mistress as they blaze a trail across the tabloid pages of the 1920s and 1930s.   The second novel in the Albany cycle depicts Billy Phelan, a slightly tarnished poker player, pool hustler, and small-time bookie, as he moves through the lurid nighttime glare of a tough Depression-era town. Full of Irish pluck, he works the fringes of Albany sporting life with his own particular style—until he falls from underworld grace.   In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Ironweed, Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, and full-time drunk, has hit bottom. Years ago he left Albany after killing a scab during a workers’ strike, and again after he accidentally—and fatally—dropped his infant son. Now, in 1938, Francis is back, roaming familiar streets and trying to make peace with ghosts of the past and present.William Kennedy’s Albany Cycle of novels reflect what he once described as the fusion of his imagination with a single place. A native and longtime resident of Albany, New York, his work moves from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, chronicling family life, the city’s netherworld, and its spheres of power—financial, ethnic, political—often among the Irish-Americans who dominated the city in this period. The novels in his cycle include, Legs, Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, Ironweed, Quinn’s Book, Very Old Bones, The Flaming Corsage, and Roscoe.

ANOTHER YEAR, ANOTHER 10 POUNDS! Once again, Garfield spreads his mirth--and his girth--to cartoon lovers everywhere. Whether he's poking fun at Jon's latest dating disaster, punting Odie off the kitchen table, or pigging out on pork skins, this well-rounded cat is always hungry for fun. Visit the Garfield Web site: www.garfield.com

At the center of this hugely comic tale of "free enterprise" America stands JR--an eleven-year-old capitalist, eagerly following the example of the grasping world around him. Operating through pay phones and post-office money orders, JR inadvertently parlays a shipment of Navy surplus picnic forks, a defaulted bond issue, and a single share of common stock into a vast paper empire embracing timber, mineral and natural gas rights, publishing, and a brewery. At once a novel of epic comedy and a biting satire of the American dream, JR displays the style and extraordinary inventiveness that has made Gaddis one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.