The Splendid and the Vile

Erik Larson is a good writer and weaves together a vivid set of diaries and letters.

Listening to Churchill's family and friends easily discuss their privilege of their lives (nannies, valets, cooks, large salaries from press barons) made me feel more socialist. It was not the authors intention at all, but the book makes it very clear how absent the lives of all the non-British of British empire were from their discussions and decisions - which made me reflect that maybe with a slightly different peace in 1917 - the brutal empires of Europe could have continued for far longer.