Erik Larson is the author of six New York Times bestsellers, most recently The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz, which examines how Winston Churchill and his “Secret Circle” went about surviving the German air campaign of 1940-41. Larson’s The Devil in the White City is set to be a Hulu limited series; his In the Garden of Beasts is under option by Tom Hanks for a feature film. He recently published an audio-original ghost story, No One Goes Alone, which has been optioned by Chernin Entertainment, in association with Netflix. His Thunderstruck has been optioned by Sony Pictures Television for a limited TV series. Larson lives in Manhattan with his wife, who is a writer and retired neonatologist; they have three grown daughters.
“The kind of page-turner you always want in a history book but
rarely get . . . Larson gives the reader a ‘you are there’ sense of
the intensity of Churchill’s work with his team on life-and-death
challenges—and solving them at a pace I found to be
mind-blowing.”—Bill Gates, GatesNotes
“Published in the midst of one of the greatest international crises
since World War II, Larson’s new book tells the story of London
facing the Blitz during that war through the characters of British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, members of his family and
his various advisers. Readers are left with an indelible
portrait of a nation coming together to face a brutal assault
from German bombs under leadership that is wise, empathetic
and strategic—not to mention highly witty and charming.”—Time
“Erik Larson, in his suspenseful new book, The
Splendid and the Vile, captures the foreboding that settled on
London leading up to the bombardment, as well as Churchill’s
determination not to give in. . . . Plus, there is
Larson’s reliable, cinematic writing and his intimate
portrayal of Churchill.”—The New Yorker
“An enthralling page-turner.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
“A damn good story. There are narrative arcs, heroes,
villains, and suspense aplenty to craft the kind of rich,
immersive histories that have become Larson’s
trademark.”—Rolling Stone
“This is Erik Larson’s moment. His affecting and
affectionate chronicle of the Churchill family during the
Blitz, the Nazi World War II bombing campaign against Great
Britain, has found a hungry audience in the United States.”—The
Boston Globe
“Through the remarkably skillful use of intimate diaries as well as
public documents, some newly released, Larson has transformed the
well-known record of 12 turbulent months, stretching from May of
1940 through May of 1941, into a book that is fresh, fast and
deeply moving.”—Candice Millard, The New York Times Book
Review
“Larson’s book offers a delicious slice of life of the world’s last
great statesman.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Fascinating . . . The entire book comes at the reader with
breakneck speed. So much happened so quickly in those 12 months,
yet Larson deftly weaves all the strands of his tale into a
coherent and compelling whole.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“I have an early copy of this book on my desk and idly began
reading the first pages—and suddenly time disappeared.”—The Seattle
Times
“Still, it is a time of sadness, fear, grief and uncertainty for so
many, and I find myself comforted by reading about other supremely
challenging times in human history, and about resilience, and hope.
For this, there is no better book right now than The Splendid and
the Vile.”—Mackenzie Dawson, New York Post
“Nonfiction king Erik Larson is back.”—PopSugar
“Spectacular . . . Larson, as America’s most compelling popular
historian, is at his best in this fast-moving, immensely readable,
and even warmhearted account of the battle to save Britain.”—The
Christian Science Monitor
"What sets [Larson's] work apart is his signature way of using
painstaking research through personal journals and historical
records to spin a gripping nonfiction tale through the ordinary
lives of the men and women who succeeded, failed, and perished as a
result.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“The Splendid and the Vile delivers the great saga with a
novelist’s touch. It’s like you’re watching and hearing the days
and nights of 1940 as a passenger on a double-decker London
bus.”—Chris Matthews, Churchill Bulletin
“The popular historian Erik Larson has done it again. As I read
this book, I kept wondering what the swelling of powerful emotion
was that I felt, sometimes in an almost physical sense.”—Andrew
Roberts, author of Churchill: Walking with
Destiny, in Air Mail
“A propulsive, character-driven account of Winston
Churchill’s first year as British prime minister . . . Readers
will rejoice.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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