After reading Eric Idle's "sortabiography" ("Always Look on the Bright Side of Life") I had to try his novel, much hyped in the autobiography.
I only made it halfway. It was an odd hybrid of science-fiction novel and comic novel and self-aggrandizement, where he mentions Monty Python and the song "ALotBSoL" in the 24th century spaceship out by Saturn. It wasn't funny, and it wasn't very engaging. Not everything the Pythons touched was golden (I have a couple DVDs if you doubt).
So my next venture was Cleese's autobiography, which starts at his birth and carries us up to the very start of MPFC. In other words, it quits before the pinnacle of his career. He's done several really good movies after Python too.
I was surprised at some of the things he had done ("Magic Christian"? I had no idea) and his stories of working with David Frost and Marty Feldman and Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker and many others were illuminating. His relationship with Connie Booth is touched on only tangentially, and his reminiscences of working with Graham Chapman have been told before.
In short, it was informative and detailed about periods of his life that is I didn't really care that much about. It was more autobiography than comic, but I suppose that shouldn't be surprising. He emphasizes, in no uncertain terms, how hard it is to write comedy.
He should know. He's one of the best.
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