Great-Uncle Harry

Michael Palin recreates the extraordinary life and tragic death of a First World War soldier - his great-uncle Harry.

I cannot remember the last time I read a book so immediately absorbing and affecting. Michael Palin has never been better - which is, of course, saying a great deal. BILL BRYSON

From the time, many years ago, when Michael Palin first heard that his grandfather had a brother, Harry, 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.

An important historical record and a well-paced story in its own right, Great-Uncle Harry is also much more than that- a tremendous act of love. Guardian