Clara’s Verdict
Michael Palin’s travel books occupy a particular and irreplaceable niche in the audiobook landscape: warm, curious, genuinely well-observed, and – when Palin reads them himself – delivered with the unhurried pleasure of someone who has thought carefully about what he wants to say and is in absolutely no rush to finish saying it. Brazil, shortlisted for Popular Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the Specsavers National Book Awards 2012, is among his finest: a country so vast and internally various that most travel writing either gives up and catalogues its highlights or reduces it to a handful of familiar images – carnival, football, the Amazon, the favelas. Palin does neither. Rated 4.5 from 319 listeners – the largest and most reliable sample in this batch – it has found a sustained readership that returns to it over years, which tells you something about the durability of the material.
About the Audiobook
Palin’s journey begins in the remote mountains and forests on the border with Venezuela and ends at the legendary Iguaçu Falls in the south – a route that takes him through the agricultural and mining heartland of Brazil, the modernist shock of Brasília, the colonial streetscapes and African-influenced culture of Salvador, the heady complexity of Rio de Janeiro, favelas, cattle ranches, and communities shaped by African, German, Japanese, and Indigenous cultural inheritances over centuries. He travels by riverboat, float-plane, and on foot, and his method is the same as it has always been across eight travel series: open curiosity, minimal preconception, and the kind of careful, patient listening that makes his subjects feel genuinely seen rather than merely observed from a comfortable distance.
The book accompanies the BBC television series of the same name but works entirely independently of it. As one reviewer notes, it “fleshes out” the story of Brazil in ways the screen cannot – longer conversations, more context, the texture of experience that television necessarily compresses into the memorable image. Palin also has access, by virtue of the BBC and his own celebrity, to places and people that ordinary travellers would never encounter, and he is honest about this advantage rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.
The Narration
Palin reads his own book, and there is simply no substitute for this. He has one of the most recognisable and immediately trustworthy voices in British public life, and it carries with it the accumulated goodwill of decades of travel journalism done with genuine intelligence and good humour. More practically, he knows exactly how he intended each sentence to land and delivers accordingly – the self-deprecating asides, the moments of genuine wonder at something he has just encountered for the first time, the passages of more serious reflection on inequality and poverty that mark his work from mere travelogue. At ten hours and six minutes, this is a comfortable, companionable listen that never outstays its welcome.
What Readers Say
With 319 reviews and a 4.5 rating, the response is consistent and warm across many years of listeners. Peter Mulligan writes: “I have found the book a very good accompaniment to the BBC TV series – it fleshes out the story of the country and the people that Michael encounters on his travels throughout Brazil.” Mark Gannon, reviewing his eighth Palin travel book, is “still loving it” and praises the access to places “the common holiday maker would never ever dream of going to.” Lawrence Paine, who lived in Brazil as a child and has not revisited it, notes that “the book caught the atmosphere of sunny Brazil and the exuberant Brazilians very evocatively.” One dissenting voice finds the use of Brazilian terminology and the emphasis on factual detail occasionally tiresome, but concedes that the writing is accomplished throughout.
Who Should Listen?
This is for travel writing enthusiasts who know the difference between a genuine observer and a tourist with a notepad, for anyone curious about Brazil beyond its most familiar exports, for listeners who have followed Palin through previous journeys and want to continue the acquaintance, and for those who enjoyed the television series and want to spend considerably more time in the country it documented. It also works beautifully as a thoughtful introduction to a country that most people know largely by reputation. Ten hours in Palin’s company, exploring one of the most extraordinary and contradictory places on earth, is an entirely reliable pleasure. Listen to Brazil on Audible UK and let Michael Palin take you somewhere you’d be unlikely to navigate so well on your own.
