“Never was there such a contrast of natural splendor and human vileness.” (John Colville’s diary entry about the peculiar beauty of watching bombs fall over the city) What better time than during a pandemic to read about the unrelenting courage of a people during one of the darkest periods of history? During the Blitz, Londoners endured fifty-seven consecutive nights of bombing. Tens of thousands of people died. How did the people endure such a terrifying ordeal? What was it like living day afte...

What can I possibly say that hasn't already been said by the hundreds of reviewers of this book! Superb comes to mind....masterful....enthralling....future classic.....WOW!!! Erik Larson has taken his place in literary history with his series of books which seem to just be getting better as time goes by. His research appears to be infallible and often doesn't depend on the usual sources.if your are a particular lover of all things Churchill, it sometimes is hard to find a book that offers new in...

Leadership! Apparently King George VI felt that Churchill had something that the country needed when he appointed him to replace Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in the spring of 1940. Observers, at the time, felt Churchill was “flamboyant, electric, wholly unpredictable” and a questionable choice to be Prime Minister. Larson’s excellent non-fiction account confirms that Churchill was all of that and more. But most of all he was a leader who knew how to move a nation with the force of his pers...

Erik Larson is my favorite author of nonfiction. He writes books that just grab me as well as always teaching me something new. Looking back on Churchill, it’s easy to assume he was always loved and admired. But that’s not the case. He had many detractors on both sides of the pond. Larson does a wonderful job of giving us a flesh and blood Churchill - kimonos and all. His strength lay in being able to give the English hope and a willingness to fight on. After his moving speech about fighting on

A terrific account of the 'darkest hour' from the perspective of the Churchills. Mr Larson has a special talent which allows him to engage a reader and leave them satisfied, like myself. This non-fiction is about the times when Great Britain was on the verge of falling into the Nazi hands and regime, and yet, Churchill and his charisma at that very moment prevented the catastrophy. The is not much politics although one might expect a huge portion of it opening a book in which Winston Churchill i...

Few authors are as gifted writing - ‘non-fiction’ - that reads like - ‘fiction’, - as Erik Larson does. With tenacity and sensitivity, Larson gives us an compelling account of history by humanizing the facts with the interesting array of characters. Larson masterfully reimagines the “The Blitz and the Battle of Britain”, ( bombs dropping & German invasion), in uniquely human terms..... filled with personal and political drama....(tragedies of war, love, family, friends, colleagues, infidelity, d...

Finally! I absolutely love Erik Larson’s other works, but I could not seem to get interested in this one. And, I couldn’t figure out why until almost the very end. There were too many story lines, centered around too many people that I found uninteresting, for me to stay with it for more than a few pages at a time. And, having read “In The Garden of Beasts” - which I loved - it seemed like this story was a result of all of the research and notes compiled and left over from that book. Anyway, I’l...

I have read several books by Eric Larson but “ Devil In The White City” was always my favorite, but after reading “The Splendid And The Vile”, this one is a tie for me with the above book.I have never read another author who can make learning about history engaging and easily readable. It was a bit hard to read in part because of the pandemic we are still struggling with. However, it was such a story of human strength, determination and victory that I found it uplifting. I had never researched W...

Publication day has finally arrived. Enjoy!Be sure to set aside plenty of time to work your way through this deep exploration of one year in the life of Churchill and those close to him. It will require some patience, but if you're not inclined to read the multi-volume biographies about him, this book is an effective distillation of the man as he navigated his first year as prime minister. May 10, 1940 through May 10, 1941 was a pivotal year, with the fate of England entirely uncertain and world...

In the Sources and Acknowledgements section of this book, the author states “...I set out to hunt for the stories that often get left out of the massive biographies of Churchill, either because there’s no time to tell them or because they seem too frivolous. But it is in frivolity Churchill often revealed himself, the little moments that endeared him to his staff, despite the extreme demands he placed on all.”This is the kind of history that I like to read, social and political but not primarily...

I have read a fair amount about Churchill, the bombings of Great Britain, and the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt (not to mention having viewed many movies and documentaries). While there is necessarily some factual overlap, I found this book, told mainly through the lens of the Churchill family, to be a fresh and intimate account of those dark days. John Lee did a great job narrating the audio version. His voice really brought Churchill alive. I knew of Churchill's intelligence but...

“The one universal balm for the trauma of war was tea. It was the thing that helped people cope. People made tea during air raids and after air raids, and on breaks between retrieving bodies from shattered buildings. Tea bolstered the network of thirty thousand observers who watched for German aircraft over England, operating from one thousand observation posts, all stocked with tea and kettles. Mobile canteens dispensed gallons of it, steaming, from spigots. In propaganda films, the making of t...