Great-Uncle Harry: A Tale of War and Empire
£11.00£22.00 (-50%)
From the time, many years ago, when Michael Palin first heard that his grandfather had a brother, Harry, who died in tragic circumstances, he was determined to find out more about him.
The quest that followed involved hundreds of hours of painstaking detective work. Michael dug out every bit of family gossip and correspondence he could. He studied every relevant official document. He tracked down what remained of his great-uncle Harry’s diaries and letters, and pored over photographs of First World War battle scenes to see whether Harry appeared in any of them. He walked the route Harry took on that fatal, final day of his life amid the mud of northern France. And as he did so, a life that had previously existed in the shadows was revealed to him.
Great-Uncle Harry is an utterly compelling account of an ordinary man who led an extraordinary life. A blend of biography, history, travelogue and personal memoir this is Michael Palin at his very finest.
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PRAISE FOR EREBUS:
‘Beyond terrific. I didn’t want it to end.’ BILL BRYSON
‘Magisterial . . . Palin brings energy, wit and humanity to a story that has never ceased to tantalise people.’ THE TIMES
‘Everybody’s talking about it . . . A brilliant book.’ CHRIS EVANS
‘I absolutely loved it: I had to read it at one sitting.’ LORRAINE KELLY
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Additional information
| Publisher | Hutchinson Heinemann (28 Sept. 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 336 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1529152615 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1529152616 |
| Dimensions | 16.2 x 3.2 x 24 cm |
by Kindle Customer
One of the most wonderful things about Michael Palin’s storytelling is that he includes the ordinary details, the everyday mundane moments that make life what it is. As a result of this, I now own both the audible version and kindle version of this brilliant story!
He brings back to life here not just his family and his great-uncle Harry, but also those whose lives intertwined with Harry’s.
From Harry’s sweetheart Margie and her missives across the channel to his comrade St Gridley who knew Harry and of his family and witnessed his final moments, Michael’s sharing of Harry’s story is a reminder that, to borrow a line from the book “This book is not the end of a story, but part of the constantly evolving process of finding out more about how we live and how we die.” We all think we live fairly ordinary lives but with the passing of time and technology, our ordinary can seem extraordinary to those who follow.
While Harry’s life came to an end over 100 years ago, his story lives on in this wonderful listen from his great-nephew and is a reminder that though the decades and technology changes many of the ordinary day to day moments and emotions we experience remain the same.
Michael’s reading and sharing of this story was beautiful on the audio version; I really enjoyed listening to these tales of his ancestor’s lives across the last 2 centuries and am already looking forward to a re-listen and re-read soon again!
by Cornish Kev
Michael Palin is a first-rate writer and his biography of his great-uncle Harry is partly autobiographical as you might expect. His harrowing portrayal of the Dardanelles Campaign and Battle of the Somme are as good as any I’ve read, perhaps better.
To think both my grandfathers survived four years of such carnage. It’s unbelievable but true. More enjoyable was the remake of the ‘American Friends’ movie of 1992 about Palin’s distinguished former Oxford don relative – Harry’s dad and how he dumped his academic career to run off with a woman half his age.
Palin fans will love this book and see it as a fine tribute to his recently deceased wife of many years Helen.
by Sion Hughes
Love Mr Palins work
by Amazon Customer
Quick delivery of a lovely book at a good price. Packaging was intact but sadly the paper jacket of the book was damaged. It was bought as a gift and no time to replace.
by PhilinJapan
Michael Palin is a consummate stylist. He engages his readers from the first line with his accessible and deeply warm, human style. History is all too often the story of the great and the good, but in this book Mr.Palin catches the humanity – and inhumanity – of the Great War through the eyes of a common soldier, and the path that took his great-uncle to this terrible conflict. This book is a moving memorial to those countless millions of unremembered heroes whose lives were so cruelly extinguished. A must-read.
by Amazon Customer
Connects the past and the present in a way that makes you realise that 120 years or so is not a long time. Great book.
by breakfast_legs
I would give this exactly 2 and a half stars if I could. I think it’s the kind of book that probably sounded a lot more exciting in the publisher’s inbox than it does in reality.
I’ve read a lot of Palin’s books over the years, the last one I read was Erebus which was excellent. This is basically an identical format, style, and even length, but instead of a ship and its crew of explorers of national and historical interest it’s an autobiography about someone who has no importance, and while Palin’s writing is as good as ever its really an impossible task to save that plot.
The first 70 or so pages were all about the genealogy of the Palin family which, while admirably researched and written, is probably not particularly interesting unless your last name is Palin. I struggled to get through that section and it honestly made me want to abandon the whole thing. Fortunately after that we get onto the travels of his uncle which becomes slightly more interesting, as it offers a kind of glimpse into the global workings of the British empire, but its still fairly mundane and not exactly a page turner reading about a the life and travels of a manual labourer despite being presented like one of Michael’s own adventures.
After about 120 pages though it really picks up though, because then it stops being an autobiography and starts becoming a diary of some of the most disastrous campaigns of the First World War. There are frequent diversions along the way into the life and travels of Michael Palin (which are interesting) and also of Harry Palin (which often aren’t) but generally the last half of the book is genuinely interesting and engaging and far more readable than the first. I feel like I actually learned quite a lot about history reading this, its very well researched and written.
Overall, I think this would have been much better if it wasn’t an autobiography and was just presented as a straight diary or travelogue. To anyone thinking of reading it, I would strongly recommend skipping the entire beginning and just going straight to the Gallipoli section, because from that point on it is a 4 or 5 star book, everything before that brings it down into more of a 2 or 3 star effort overall.
by Peter Cooper
The book excels at telling the surprise Palin has at finding out the secrets of his uncles life and is written beautifully so takes the reader along that journey within every page.