On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons (30,000 of them Londoners) and destroying two million homes. It was up to Churchill to hold the country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally--that she was willing to fight to the end.
Erik Larson’s latest work of narrative nonfiction is DEAD WAKE: THE LAST CROSSING OF THE LUSITANIA, which became an immediate New York Times bestseller. His saga of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and won an Edgar Award for fact-crime writing, and lingered on various NYT best-seller lists for the better part of a decade. Hulu plans to adapt the book for a limited TV series, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese as executive producers. Erik’s IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS, about America’s first ambassador to Nazi Germany and his daughter, has been optioned by Tom Hanks for development as a feature film.
His next book, THE SPLENDID AND THE VILE: A SAGA OF CHURCHILL, FAMILY, AND DEFIANCE DURING THE BLITZ, due out in early spring 2020, is a story of geopolitical brinksmanship during Churchill’s first year as prime minister, but also an intimate domestic drama, set against the backdrop of Churchill’s prime-ministerial country house, Chequers, and his “full-moon home,” Ditchley, where Churchill, his family, and his “Secret Circle” convene when the moon is in its brightest phases and the bombing threat is highest.
Erik is a former features writer for The Wall Street Journal and Time. His magazine stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's and other publications.
He has taught non-fiction writing at San Francisco State, the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, the University of Oregon, and the Chuckanut Writers Conference, and has spoken to audiences from coast to coast. A former resident of Seattle, he now lives in Manhattan with his wife, a neonatologist and author of the nonfiction memoir, ALMOST HOME, which, as Erik puts it, "could make a stone cry." They have three daughters in far-flung locations and professions.
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读完这本书,我最大的感受是震撼。它以一种近乎冷峻的笔触,描绘了在极端压力下,普通人如何展现出非凡的韧性与勇气。叙事的节奏把握得非常到位,时而紧凑得让人喘不过气,时而又放慢速度,让你有时间去消化那些沉重的历史教训。我特别欣赏作者那种不带过多评判的客观态度,他只是冷静地呈现事实,让读者自己去体会其中的复杂性与矛盾性。这种处理方式使得全书的基调非常成熟和深刻,不落俗套。对我来说,它提供了一个观察特定历史时期人性多面性的绝佳窗口。文字的密度很高,每一句话似乎都承载着巨大的信息量,让人不得不反复阅读,细细咂摸其中的深意。
评分说实话,一开始我有点担心这会是一本晦涩难懂的“大部头”,但出乎意料的是,作者的文笔极其流畅自然,完全没有传统历史书籍的架子气。他有一种魔力,能将复杂的人物关系和错综的事件脉络梳理得井井有条,逻辑清晰得令人赞叹。我常常在想,要达到这样的叙事水平,背后需要付出多少心血去研究和打磨?读起来的感觉就像是看一部制作精良的纪录片,画面感极强,但又拥有小说的叙事张力。最让我印象深刻的是他对“希望”这个主题的处理,即便在最黑暗的时刻,总有一丝微弱但坚韧的光芒被作者精准地捕捉并放大,让人在阅读的痛苦中找到一丝慰藉。
评分我向来偏爱那种能激发思考的非虚构作品,而这本正好击中我的靶心。它不仅仅是讲述过去发生了什么,更重要的是探讨了“为什么会这样”以及“我们能从中学习到什么”。作者的提问方式非常高明,他不会直接给出结论,而是将各种矛盾和困境摆在读者面前,引人深思。语言风格上,它既有学术研究的严谨性,又不失文学作品的感染力,达到了一种美妙的平衡。读完之后,我花了很长时间去回味其中的某些段落,那种智力上的挑战和情感上的共鸣,是很少有作品能给予的。强烈推荐给所有对人性、历史深度感兴趣的读者。
评分这本书的视角非常独特,它没有聚焦于那些高高在上的决策者,而是将镜头拉近,对准了那些在时代洪流中挣扎求存的小人物。这种“以小见大”的手法,让历史的温度变得可触可感。作者在构建场景时的细节铺陈,简直可以用“一丝不苟”来形容,从家具的摆设到人们的衣着,再到空气中弥漫的气味,都栩栩如生地浮现在眼前。这种对环境的精细描摹,极大地增强了代入感,让我感觉自己仿佛成了那个时代的旁观者。整体的阅读体验是沉浸式的、全方位的,看完之后,对那个时代的认知维度被极大地拓宽了,绝非走马观花式的了解。
评分这本书简直是文字的盛宴,那种历史的厚重感和人物的细腻情感交织在一起,让人读得爱不释手。作者的叙事功力炉火纯青,仿佛带着我们亲身走进了那个波谲云诡的时代。我尤其佩服他对细节的捕捉,那些日常生活的点滴,在宏大的历史背景下闪烁着人性真实的光辉。每一个章节的转折都设计得恰到好处,让你忍不住一口气读完,心里却又盼着慢慢品味。它不仅仅是一部历史记录,更像是一部充满张力的文学作品,成功地将枯燥的史料转化为了引人入胜的故事。那种身临其境的代入感,是我近年来阅读体验中少有的。历史人物不再是书本上冰冷的符号,而是有血有肉、有恐惧有希望的鲜活个体。
评分第一次听有声书,觉得这本太合适了——既是很平实的历史又有戏剧性,而且朗读得非常好,把丘吉尔轻微的lisping都学出来了。最后附上1941年美国参战后丘吉尔在白宫的演讲录音,也是平时看书不会有的彩蛋。至于内容,历史部分非常浅显(也因此很适合听),有趣的是丘吉尔和他身边的人的性格和日常,以及Blitz的阴影下不懈的生活,这就是标题中的 the splendid
评分John Lee作为朗读者,给这本书增添了不少色彩。有声书末尾丘吉尔的演讲更是加重了历史感。虽然知道事件发生的来龙去脉,但是这个故事似乎着重于人物刻画,所以更加接地气。
评分那段历史太迷人了。Rule Britannia! [Bojo号称视丘吉尔为偶像 - 但凡能学到半点皮毛也不至于这么辣鸡
评分3.5,50页弃,送人当圣诞节礼物了,文风不适合我(而且畅销书排版的字都这么大的吗…?
评分好看好看好看!只讲了一年的历史,但密度很大,丘吉尔身边大到军事计划小到秘书的恋爱史都提到了。虽然很长字体很小,读得不轻松,但写得非常有画面感,历史和当事人的感想穿插,有层次深度。
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