Book Review: "The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz" by Erik Larson

A ways back I heard that Erik Larson was going to have a new book coming out and I was like well, no matter what I'm going to read it because I love me some Erik Larson. And then I found out he had written another book set during WWII and I was super thrilled! I had preordered the book and was saving it to read during my vacation in France this summer but...well...so I still read it during the time I was supposed to be in France, except for now it was being read on my couch in my living room or in the office snatching a few pages here and there between meetings.

So this whole book orbits around Churchill and the people who he saw the most during his day to day life during the war (his wife, his kids, his cabinet members, etc). But for context we also hear about Hitler and Goring, who was running the Luftwaffe, the Nazis air force. And when the USA enters the war; FDR. Also this book is the first time where I've heard a lot of details about London during the Blitz. It made me think of a lot of questions about these bombs and how they worked and how (in one particular instance) how a bomb ripped through a basement night club and killed a whole bunch of people - there was a group of people seated at a table and they had no visible injuries but were all killed instantly, but a woman standing not far away from them had her stockings burned off but was totally fine otherwise. But like, these are not things that I feel real comfortable googling. Helllllo watchlist.

Since this book covers a lot of facts I'm going to give you some of my highlights:

• Hitler and Churchill both HATED whistling. A weird center circle of their Venn diagram but there it is.
• Churchill was rough on his secretarys and typists. All hours, sometimes he's naked in bed dictating, sometimes you're taking short hand in a speeding car in a time where there is no seatbelts, a day in the life must have been exhausting
• Churchill's son Randolph was a Class A Dickweed. He had an intense gambling problem and had a habit of leaving maps that had confidential information on them overnight on his "parked on the street" unlocked car. It didn't take long for them to NOT give Randolph those maps anymore.
• So many stories of bombers on both sides dropping bombs on the wrong cities by accident. German pilots dropped bombs onto a playground in Germany killing 20 kids thinking that they had bombed a city in France.Flying by night with no lights and unreliable maps/navigation - not great!
• So many Londoners experienced gastrointestinal distress due to the consistent threat of bombings. They called in Siren Stomach, I call it the Anxiety Shits.They had good reason - between 1940-1941 44,652 Londoners were killed and 52,370 were injured. 5,626 of the dead were children.

The facts above may make it seem like it was a super depressing book - it was not. It definitely had sad parts but really highlighted the humanity of everyone who was working hard to provide safety and continued existence in England and beyond. 4 out of 5 stars!