The Splendid And The Vile

 Right now I am watching "The Crown" on Netflix which is a series about Queen Elizabeth II. I am still in the first of five seasons. In it John Lithgow does a fascinating acting job as he plays Winston Churchill. That is why I chose to read an autobiography of Churchill by Erik Larson called The Splendid and the Vile; A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During The Blitz.  The autobiography goes from 1940 to 1941, the darkest days of World War Two before Pearl Harbor. So many bombs were dropped on London and Coventry and so many towns, the stories are just incredible. The book includes information from the German leadership who never expected Churchill to keep fighting. They were sure he would capitulate and surrender. I thought the day to day experiences of Winston, his wife and his children were fascinating. This book had more than 1700 pages of information about Churchill, his family, his friends and his enemies. He was a complex person; both splendid and vile.