Jean's Reviews > Churchill: Walking with Destiny

I am a big fan of Churchill. I have an extensive library of books by and about Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965). I was going to purchase this book for my library, but I found the typeface so tiny I was unable to read it. I do have reduced vision and primarily use audiobooks so I ended up purchasing this book in audiobook format. Unfortunately, I did not have access to the maps, illustrations and photographs in the printed format. This is the first major biography of Churchill since “Churchill: A Biography” by Roy Jenkins in 2001. My favorite is Winston’s own memoirs, but I do like the multiple volumes by William Manchester. Andrew Roberts is a British historian. A goal of Roberts was to write this in one volume but the tiny print the publisher had to use to achieve the goal makes it unrealistic. The book is 1152 pages.

The book is well written and is divided into two section: his life prior to 1940 and his life after 1940. Roberts has new information from newly released documents and letters including meeting notes from King George VI. It appears that the King and Churchill had a good working relationship. But the majority of information is well known to Churchill fans and scholars. In trying to keep this into one volume, Roberts did not provide extensive analytic depth. I did not find the book to be hagiographic as some reviews have stated; but, it does have a bit of a Churchillian spin to it because he quoted a great deal from Churchill. I liked the last chapter as it provided a summary of the pros and cons about Churchill. Even with the addition of the new information, I did not learn anything new about Churchill, but I always like to read about my hero. If you have not read about Churchill before, this book will provide the latest overview of him.

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. The book is fifty hours and twenty-eight minutes. Stephen Thorne does a good job narrating the book. Thorne is a British actor and well-known audiobook narrator. It was great listening to his beautiful voice.