Another great, light, biography from Mary S. Lovell. My Granny worked with Winston Churchill during the war, so I found his story particularly interesting. Amazing times, extraordinary people.

It is quite a daunting prospect to review a book about such a monumental person as Sir Winston Churchill. Google his name and pages and pages of stuff are listed. Any one of these provides a potted biography, lists of his many outstanding achievements, the ups and downs of his political career, his talents and interests, his personal and family life, his memorable quotes, trusts, speeches and books he wrote. The latter a career in itself.

So the purpose of this review is not to tell you about Sir Winston's life, but about this particular book which sets out to document it. And what a book it is. It sheer size alone is huge - running to 670 pages, with the last 100 pages comprising bibliography, notes, appendices and a most impressive index; chock full of photographs; and a comprehensive family tree. All of which I regularly referred to.

Beginning with the origins of the family dukedom (awarded by Queen Anne in 1702), the first chapter gives a brief but fascinating history of the family up till about the middle of the 19th century and the time of the 7th Duke of Marlborough. Sir Winston's father, Lord Randolph, was the third son of this particular Duke. From then on the book focuses in huge detail on the life of Winston, literally from cradle to grave.

The research the author has put into this book is quite staggering. I always find it quite remarkable how people in our recent past kept so much of their personal written correspondence. This is now such a rich source of information about daily life, issues, and relationships of those who until quite recently really were living amongst us. I am thinking of letters that Winston wrote at boarding school to his parents, or the heart felt letters and notes that he and his wife Clementine wrote to each other constantly through out their marriage. Not only has the author managed to find her way through all this material, but somehow she has the ability to put it all together in such a way that at times you feel as if you are invading someone's innermost thoughts, or being given permission to wallow in the salacious gossip and lurid details of the lives of the British aristocracy. Will email and Facebook ever provide us again with such a rich and thoughtful insight into lives?

There is plenty of scandal and gossip throughout this book. Quite startling too I have to say: a whole appendix devoted to whether or not Lord Randolph died of syphilis, for example. And one look at the extensive family tree, with Winston and his brother Jack in the center of it, shows that they are the only ones who were married only once. So much for 'till death do us part'. There certainly wasn't much of that around! Fascinating reading.

But it is not all social climbing, bed hopping, and saving face. I doubt whether Winston would have had the impressive career and political life he had if it had not been for the support, devotion and undying love of his wife Clementine. She herself was an amazing woman and became a life peer, as well as a Dame. Her own war service as president or chairperson of various service groups earned her enormous respect and recognition. Yet her role as Winston's life long partner will be what she is forever remembered for. As the saying goes, behind every successful man there is a great woman.

From childhood Winston set his sights on a career in politics. His love of toy soliders and battle planning meant a defence career was also a foregone conclusion. To make these subjects interesting and readable to the average reader is quite an achievement; there were perhaps only a few pages when I felt I had read enough about that particular political machination (plenty of them), or the intricacies of a certain military action. The one section that did have me riveted however was the appalling debacle at Gallipoli in 1915-1916 when Churchill was the First Lord of the Admirality. As a result he received much of the blame for the disaster. Coming from New Zealand, the battle of Gallipoli features very heavily in our history and national identity as it also does for Australians. We know a lot about this battle in this part of the world. So to have the author so vividly, concisely and simply tell the story, for me, was one of the main things I have taken away from this book.

What I also take away from this book is that the world is sorely lacking in leaders with the outstanding qualities that Winston Churchill had. I can't think of a single leader in recent years who has the ability to inspire people,to not be afraid, who, as the author tells it, is not in the job for personal glorification or sees the job as a means to his own ends. The author clearly loves her subject; her admiration for the man and what he achieved in his life time and for his country is enormous. Whether this is a failing of the book I do not know, as I have not done any research or previous reading of Winston Churchill. The author has however, compiled mountains of material into a most readable and fascinating account of Britain, Europe, its leaders, movers and shakers over almost ninety years and for that reason alone it is worth reading.

Mary Lovell has written biographies of some very interesting well-known and not so well-known people and families - the Mitford sisters, Beryl Markham, Amelia Earhart and Jane Digby, plus others. I have read two of these other biographies, both of which were easy, enjoyable and informative, but also large reads!

gossipy and light for the subject matter but as interesting as the characters it portraits

A catalogue of who is sleeping with whom for the most part. I can appreciate the research, but this is not my thing.

Lovell does an admirable job of describing more of the Churchill family then just Winston. Although, be not mistaken Winston Churchill takes a large share of this book and it ends with Clementine's death. The highlight of the book was finding all the connections the Churchills had made with the famous people of their time, long before Winston's fame.

Winston is the most famous, but his family was not short of interesting people. It was so good to see the family, how they shaped/influenced Winston and the type of legacy his generation left. I recommend this book to anyone who has a mild fascination with Winston Churchill. It describes him enough to fill a void, but also beautifully describes his time and family. Now I must read Lovell's book about the Mitford sisters.

Entertaining. Not a big book. A peak inside the photo albums and scrapbooks of the most noteworthy Churchills. Might have been more coherent had it started with Jenny and Randolph and given more depth and breadth to both of them as well as greater context for Winston, the true star of the book. Not s bad way to spend some easy reading time but rather like a soufflé when you would rather a rich creme brûlée.

Well and clearly written. Covers a wide scope of history, emphasizing personal relationships over well-covered historical events.

There is something about Lovell's writing that makes the lives, affairs, gowns, parities, marriages and divorces of the British Empire of the 20th Century so important. It was the garden parities, the balls, the adventurers, the safaris that seem to make Britain great, what what. It is what I loved Lovell's other book 'The Mitford Girls'. It does actually warm my heart that it was the likes of Bertie Wooster giving it a go and what not that built up the empire. Ok it was that glossy, but I like the image.

This is Mary Lovell's world and she writes it well.

'The Churchills follows this same vein. Though of course there is one extremely prominent member of this old and prestigious English family. Winston is of course the most conspicuous and important person of 20th century British history. I can't really think of anyone else that consumed as much of that century as Winnie. His political career in 1901 and ended pretty much on his death in 1965. His deep gravelly voice still echoes on with 'We shall fight them on the beaches.' In fact I remember when I was in England him being voted greatest Briton.

This is a Tankless biography on Churchill, only a glimpse of a Spitfire. Yes Lovell does touch on Churchill major events the Boar War, the First World War and the Dardanelles, and of course his great moment the Battle of Britain. Obviously Churchill was a workaholic, and never got up to any really proper shenanigans, and it is shenanigans what this book it about. So thank god for his many relatives, or it would have been Winston drinks too much Champaign and Clementine (his long suffering wife) sighs and dabs her forehead exhausted with a handkerchief.

His father (Randolph) another prima donna politician died of syphilis. His mother (Jennie) the first of the Million Dollar Princesses (wealthy American heiresses marrying poor aristocrats with titles), who married three times in her life time, each time her husband younger and younger. I remember years ago watching an interview with Mick Jagger, which showed a daughter asking her father not to bring anyone younger than her to her birthday. I wondered if he had to have a quiet word with mummy, her final husband was three years younger than Winston, oh the scandal. You would have never wanted Jennie as a mother, but oh she would have been great at a party.

I found a lot of this book engrossing, I loved the descriptions of society weddings and society affairs all through Victorian to post war eras. In the beginning Lovell states divorce was unacceptable, but my goodness it happened a lot, they were divorcing and re-marrying all over the place. This is a book with a lot of big personalities, even the Mitfords manage to sneak back in.

But at times Winston did not always seem to fit in with his large boisterous family, while he was creating military fiascos (Gallipoli), or saving the world in the 1940's, his actually personality (which by all account was huge and boisterous) got lost a little. This could also be because Lovell tries to defend him at every turn. She is quite happy to write her other character warts and all, but Winnie she wants to wrap up in cotton wool. He felt like Saint Winston more than mere mortal. Lovell did grow up during the war, and listened to many of his moral building radio speeches. I thankfully have had not such experience.

The writing at times was a little repetitive, when people meet the attraction was always mutual, Clementine did not trust so and so (poor woman didn't seem to like anyone), and so on. But it was a engrossing and entertaining, what you want from a garden party really.

Wonderful depiction of the lives of various Churchills. As with most English histories, keeping the names straight is a bit of a challenge - I blame all the hereditary titles!

This book is not for you if you're looking for a history of Churchill's political life - although Lovell does touch on that because it's a huge part of who Churchill was - this is a book about their lives and relationships.

Excellent. I learned the hard way after suffering through a particularly bad biography of Mandela, that an interesting subject matter doesn't instantly equate to an interesting read. No such complaints here, the author takes the excellent source material and has produced a book that reads like a fantastic soap opera - and I completely mean this in a complimentary way. Also, loved the footnotes - never thought I'd say that, but they're great - sometimes funny, but always loaded with additional information that adds to the general fantastic nature of the book. Would highly recommend this to anyone even remotely interested in history.