John Cleese's Reading List

"This book has, more than any others, explained things I have been puzzled by for decades, in particular the shortcomings of pure intellectualism."

"As a child I read mainly about animals and cricket. I consumed the Doctor Dolittle books, and Elleston Trevor's Deep Wood and Badger's Moon, and Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows."

"In my teens I read adventure novels. I loved Conan Doyle's books about Brigadier Gerard, the Horatio Hornblower stories, Alexandre Dumas's swashbucklers, Rafael Sabatini's pirate romps, and John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps."

"It's the only truly funny book I've read, apart from Three Men in a Boat, which my father's generation revered."

"It's the only truly funny book I've read, apart from Three Men in a Boat, which my father's generation revered."

"The Righteous Mind, by Jonathan Haidt, is the most important book I've come across about the ever-advancing polarization of all aspects of our world. Its clarity is stunning."

"A wildly entertaining book about probability, which left me ultimately deflated by my complete ignorance of chance, or luck, and what an astonishing huge part that plays in our lives."