Nicholas Shakespeare was born in 1957. The son of a diplomat, much of his youth was spent in the Far East and South America. His books have been translated into twenty languages. They include The Vision of Elena Silves (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), Snowleg, The Dancer Upstairs, Secrets of the Sea, Inheritance and Priscilla. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He currently lives in Oxford.
History books should give us insight and information, surprise and
entertainment, and allow us to see the world, an incident or a
character differently. Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May
delivers in abundance.
*Observer, Best Books of 2017*
Unputdownable… Us[es] new evidence with a novelist’s feeling for
personality and atmosphere
*Guardian, Best Books of 2017*
Of the abundant new books on the Second World War, Nicholas
Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May…takes the prize. The familiar
story of how Churchill unexpectedly became prime minister in 1940
has never been told so amusingly, nor in such detail
*Daily Telegraph, Best History Books of 2017*
Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May: How Churchill
Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister…is as gripping as a novel. Apart
from being meticulously researched, thoroughly original and
beautifully written, the book is an important reminder of the fact
that the direction of history can change in a heartbeat
*History Today, Best History Books of 2017*
An eloquent study in how quickly the political landscape can change
-- and history with it
*The Economist, Books of the Year 2017*
A superbly written drama... Shakespeare's research is thorough and
he has a novelist's flair for depicting the characters and motives
of great and lesser men...Fascinating.
*The Times*
Shakespeare brings both meticulous research and fictional artistry
to illuminate the machinery of government under extreme stress and
the abrasive conflict of large, self-confident personalities. It's
a superb achievement.
*Ian McEwan*
Riveting…never less than gripping. But the real delight of its book
is the convincing, and often revelatory, portraits of the main
protagonists.
*Evening Standard.*
Brilliant, meticulous…This scintillating joy of a book — with a
military narrative of British shame as well handled as William
Dalrymple’s Return of a King, and a treatment of 20th-century
British politics, romance, humiliation and desire as grandly
realised as Anthony Powell’s great novel sequence….Shakespeare’s
narrative is not just more reliable than Churchill’s, but more
fun.
*Spectator*
Superb: far and away the best account of the moment which changed
our national life and the world, and filled with extraordinary new
details. Shakespeare brings a novelist's eye to the characters he
writes about, but it is the extraordinary way he marshals his
material, far more extensive than I've come across before, which
makes this book quite simply magnificent.
*John Simpson*
Everyone delving into this riveting and rollicking account of the
Chamberlain-Lord Halifax-Churchill succession will find special
pleasure today in inhaling the rich mix of ambition and weakness,
bravery and fecklessness, jealousy and sheer hatred, because the
contemporary echoes are loud and irresistible... Nicholas
Shakespeare achieves the remarkable feat of bringing tension to an
old story by understanding the human drama...He has a novelist’s
feel for self-pity, jealousy and ambition. The story of Churchill’s
accession to power on the day that Hitler’s armies entered the Low
Countries and set course for France has never been infused with so
much humanity.
*New Statesman*
The most thrilling book I have read for years.
*Keith Thomas*
Superb...Enthralling.
*Daily Telegraph*
Superb: he has pieced together the various sources (sometimes quite
different in their accounts) and written what can almost be read as
a detective story.
*The Oldie*
Nicholas Shakespeare's impeccably researched, coherent and
revelatory explanation about how Churchill became Prime Minister at
the exact time of Hitler's onslaught in the West is totally
captivating. It will stand as the best account of those
extraordinary few days for very many years.
*Andrew Roberts*
Magnificent… The book, though totally anchored in the facts, has a
novelist’s eye for feeling and atmosphere
*i*
Utterly wonderful… It reads like a thriller
*Peter Frankopan*
A superb work of history. Shakespeare has assumed nothing and
allowed himself to be guided only by what a patient re-examination
of the evidence-some of it new, much of it still surprisingly
ill-digested until now- actually reveals. That is being an
historian. The fact that he is also a novelist just means that it
is very well written too, a thriller, in fact.
*Simon Green, Professor of Modern History, Leeds University*
Shakespeare is better known as a novelist than as a historian. This
may change after his superb account of the under-examined Norwegian
campaign, for which alone his book deserves to be read… Shakespeare
is excellent in tracing the intricate manoeuvres ahead of the
debate between groups of parliamentarians… Enthralling
*Daily Telegraph*
One of the very best history books I have ever read.
*Duff and Nonsense*
An eloquent study in how quickly the political landscape can
change—and history with it.
*The Economist*
An absorbing account of how events 1,300 miles away across the
North Sea let to the most drastic cabinet reshuffle in modern
British history... Shakespeare's book grips the attention from
beginning to end. He conjures the characters and personalities of
the senior commanders in the Norwegian campaign with a novelist's
flair and eye for detail.
*Observer*
The most prescient book of the year
*Big Issue*
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