Synopsis
A perceptive and funny chronicle, these diaries are a rich portrait of how Monty Python emerged and triumphed.
The New York Times - Peter Keepnews
The kind of person that someone appears to be on stage, screen or television is of course not necessarily the kind of person he really is. Palin, though, has revealed more than enough of himself over the years, especially in his wonderful BBC travel documentaries, to confirm that he really is a nice guy, not to mention witty, perceptive and (especially for a globetrotter) down to earth. Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years provides still more evidence. This charming and at times revelatory book is exactly what its name says it is: not a memoir or a history but simply excerpts from the diary Palin began keeping in 1969. A voice of (relative) sanity in the eye of a comedic storm, Palin paints so vivid a picture that the reader becomes a Python by proxy…Not that Diaries 1969-1979 is only about being a Python. It is appealing largely because as much as Palin loves making people laugh, he never forgets that comedy is his job rather than his life.