The bookshelves of the world are bowed low with books about Sir Winston Churchill -- biographies, analyses, defenses, debunkings, plus collected speeches, articles, and other writings. And there's no shortage of life-in-pictures books, either. Of the later category, I have no hesitation in declaring that this one is the best. Any Churchillophile (and there are lots of us) should be sure to add this to his collection.

There are two primary reasons this title is so good. One is the vast number of photos collected between its covers. The second is the fact that the collector, and commentator, is Churchill's official biographer, Martin Gilbert, the man who arguably knows Churchill better than anyone now living (with the possible exception of his daughter, Lady Mary Soames). Not only is Gilbert's selection of photos excellent and illustrative, but his discussion of them is as well. As an accompaniment to the Official Biography, or any of the spate of other recent biographies, this book shouldn't be missed.

This analytical and thorough work builds nicely on the current critical look at Churchill's achievements. Carlton reminds us that Churchill, at bottom, was just another politician. Certainly, he believed passionately that the Soviet empire was evil and tyrannical; yet, in his zeal to be remembered as a world statesman (rather than just one of the protagonists in World War II) he was willing to flip flop whenever it suited him. Carlton also, repeatedly, reminds us that Churchill probably thought the Russians to be more wicked than the Germans and that he advocated the preemptive postwar use of nuclear weapons before the Soviets had developed a nuclear arsenal. Churchill's duplicity, vanity and senility in his last years are also brilliantly illustrated in this book. This is not the Churchill that many of us were taught by our history masters. Thanks to David Carlton, we now have a readable account of the whole man and not just the man as he would have us remember him. A must read.

The political analyst and historian Richard Lamb waited 50 years after events so that the British archives could be freely searched for first drafts of letters, memos, cables, and other communiques. We learn what the principals were actually thinking and feeling before they toned down their language in later drafts. Many hints of Winston Churchill's less than perfect diplomacy and military "genius" are scattered through histories and memoirs that he could not bowdlerize. Along with a generally positive assessment of Churchill's popularity as at tough pitbull, these imperfections are highlighted in Lamb's account. Here we find Churchill to have been doggedly and impetuously fallible, terrible in confrontation, mulish in his negotiations, and very shrewd in his sub-rosa efforts to bring the United States into the war. He fired good generals and kept on mediocre ones; he blundered so badly with the French that Americans paid blood on the beaches of North Africa. He pushed for boyishly-conceived sallies against military advice and got blood on his hands for which he dodged responsibility.

Without stating so explicitly, Lamb makes it clear that of the three European warlords, Churchill was the least capable; if it had not been for the codebreakers (Ultra), Hitler's strategies and tactics likely would have mangled every British, Canadian, and British-American venture. And the perfidy Churchill used to further his post-war aims for the British Empire was outclassed and outgunned by Stalin.

Lamb's prose is elegant as his research is uncannily good. Every WWII amateur should read this book. Pity that it went out of print.

With so many self-help books on the market today, it's easy to forget that perhaps the greatest lessons come not from today's hottest new talkshow guest, but from those who have weathered history's darkest times. Frederick Talbott has captured the essence of one of history's greatest speakers simply by letting him speak for himself. Winston Churchill's words, spoken in the most trying of times, can give a person a great deal of courage and motivation to cope with today's daily battles.

Talbott gives a brief background with each quotation to put the words into context. And that is enough. The beauty and power of Churchill's words and character come through without any additional analysis or insight. And that is the beauty of this book.

A must for any Churchill fan or anyone whose daily battles sometimes seem too harsh to bear.

To the extent they know anything about him at all (given the sad state of education today), most people know of Sir Winston Churchill as the man who led Britain during its Finest Hour. But even if World War II had never happened, a strong case could be made that Churchill was one of the most influential and important British politicians of the Twentieth Century. Addison's excellent book shows why.

First elected to Parliament in the last days of Queen Victoria's reign, Churchill served until the time of the current Monarch. Addison covers all those years thoroughly, not only shedding new light on well-known incidents like Tonypandy, the General Strike, and Sidney Street, but also on less visible (but arguably more important) topics like Churchill's ongoing commitment to prison reform.

Like it was for his nation, World War II was Churchill's Finest Hour. But it was only about one-tenth of his storied career. Anyone who would have a well-rounded understanding of this well-rounded man needs to have Addison's book on his shelves.

If you cringe whenever you hear our civic leaders butcher an over-rehearsed line, mix a metaphor or use any number of PC abominations currently in vogue, wash your ears out with this collection of speeches by a master of the English language. I consider any literary work or speech by Churchill to be among the best examples of the proper use of our great and beautiful language. More so than even Shakespeare, because Shakespeare is so antiquated, Churchill is the high priest of proper modern English.

Churchill had a way of mixing humor, invective and sarcasm to drive home his point, but never in a base or vulgar way. He never pandered to the audience or talked down to them; he spoke honestly in a determined and forthright manner that assumed a level of intelligence capable of understanding whatever he said.

Churchill was the most quotable of twentieth century world leaders. Who could forget his cut at Mussolini: "An Italian sausage in a Sam Browne belt." Or this gem about truth which should have been played weekly during the political scandals of the 1990s: "Truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it and ignorance deride it, but in the end, there it is."

This book also serves as an excellent historical reference. It is thoroughly indexed and has a comprehensive table of contents. The editor has written a helpful preface to each series of speeches to provide background for the modern reader. The book should prove interesting to any history buff, and should read like poetry to those who love the English language, properly used.

Martin Gilbert, now Knighted as Sir Martin Gilbert, is one of the great historians of our time, and he has written the definitive biography of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill. He has been at work for 38 years, and the task is not yet complete. The biography itself was completed in 1988, the production of these companion volumes continues.

The biographic work itself is 8 volumes in length, and presently there are 15 additional companion volumes that contain every note and correspondence imaginable. These books get right down to the one-sentence telegrams of congratulation. To give you a sense of their scope and detail, this volume that covers 9 months runs to 1,370 pages with notes.

The books are fascinating for what they contain, and for the completeness they represent. All the information is here, these were not meant to be widely read, but to be documentary, so there is nothing missing. I also enjoy them as they give the reader a glimpse in to the world of the Biographer, a man who in this instance has spent nearly 40 years of his life on his subject.

These put the work of the Biographer in perspective. It may be more appropriate to say a Biographer of Mr. Gilbert's stature. It is often remarked that no biographical study has ever been so complete as his work of Churchill, and if you happen to have one of these books you will certainly see why. I enjoy reading them a bit at a time, as they bring you into Mr. Churchill's day, note-by-note, letter by letter, and they document an incomparable life.

Never Surrender is yet another volume in what already is the longest biography in the world. (At least according to the good people at the guiness book of world records. ) It is a collection of all the speeches and papers of Winston Churchill during the most critical phase of his Prime Ministry, and perhaps the most critical phase of World War Two. In this volume we get to witness Churchill's reaction to Dunkirk, the fall of France, and the Battle of Britain, and we also get to witness Churchill's heroic response to them. In this volume we see Churchill at his absolute best.

The offical biography is written by Martin Gilbert, a task he assumed after Randolf, Winston Churchill's son, died. The bigraphy consists of eight biographic volumes, and each volume has a few volumes of relevant documents to support it. Never Surrender is one of the document volumes which support the biographic volume "Finest Hour: 1939-1941" which is perhaps the finest volume of the entire biography. With all biogrphic volumes and the supporting books, The entire biography now stands at 23 volumes. Roughly 7-10 more are expected.

Never Surrender is probably the finest supporting volume of the entire set. It covers possibly the most important moment in British history, and it is a fine read in itself thanks to the usual outstanding work of Gilbert. The book is not for everyone, only those well versed in Churchill lore, and also keep in mind the book is not a narrative, but more like a collection of letters. But to anyone truly interested in Chuchill, or this era of English history, the book is nearly a must-have.

to those around him, you will need to read Lord Moran's memoir. As his personal physician, Lord Moran knew more about Churchill than anyone ouside the statesman's family. An intimate portrait that relates Churchill's fate to his health, attitudes and ideosyncracies. Sets an example for those who would be discrete, yet truthful. Churchill's Boswell.

Many books have been written which present the Sephiroth, Paths and their symbolism in an intellectual, Hermetic manner; it is the intention of this book to breathe the life of individual creativity into the body of arcane wisdom.

The text is presented in a deliberately upbeat, contemporary style, designed to be accessible to novices as well as to older adepti. This by no means compromises the traditional attributes of the Kabbalistic system, which remain the backbone of the text. Accurate traditional information is presented throughout the book, and from this sure foundation both author and reader are free to extrapolate.