It was something that took place eight months later, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Britain: The second was not Churchill’s death, nor his moving state funeral at St. The first was t he death of Marigold Churchill, Winston and Clementine’s daughter, who died in childhood before Mary Churchill was born. Two events in the book brought tears to my eyes.

Before I jump into more Churchill, I’m distracting myself with Lee Child’s first Jack Reacher novel.Ģ. Fortunately, there is plenty that Churchill himself wrote available to read, but I decided to give myself a little break. Churchill was dead, and for two months, I had followed the course of his life in great detail from his birth, through three wars, through the Korean conflict and the beginning of the Cold War, and through his death and funeral. While I probably should not have been surprised, I found that when I finished the books yesterday, I was overcome by sadness. The rich details of the book really did immerse me in the time period. I started reading the biography back on July 13 and finished yesterday, on September 17, so I spent a good portion of the summer immersed in British and European history, and I found it fascinating. Manchester did not survive to finish the third volume, and enlisted the help of journalist Paul Reid to complete the task. Not a moment of it was boring, and while I’d say the book doesn’t dethrone David McCullough’s John Adams as my favorite biography, it does join it there, in equal splendor, although for different reasons. For folks who binge-watch TV shows, that is the equivalent of watching about 195 40-minute episodes back-to-back. The audio books are more than 130 hours in length, the equivalent of listening non-stop for 5-1/2 days. The three books total more than 2,000 pages. It is, officially, the longest biography I have ever read, far taking the 3-volume Theodore Roosevelt biography by Edmund Morris. Yesterday, I finished reading William Manchester’s massive 3-volume biography of Winston Churchill, The Last Lion.

The last lion manchester