 "The place to start." | 2008-09-07 |
| - Reviewed By bookholic |
| To say it exudes wit, humour, intelligence and charm is a big understatement.br /He was 56 at the time he wrote it... so, we have the benefit of experience too...br /A MUST READ.br /br /ADBbr /br /PS: The film done about it (using the book as the script) is also very good if a bit slow in parts (specially political speeches). |
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| "A brilliant first hand account." | 2008-02-20 |
| - Reviewed By pawn_raider |
| If you want to know about Winston Churchill's early life and just how well he was able to write well then look no further. The prose is rich, his vocabulary is extensive and the phrasing is pure Churchill. This is a great introduction into his life and writing ability and many sayings and phrases Churchill is known for are given in this volume. Few, if any, are willing to risk potential embarrassment by stating as one of their life's accomplishments any book that they have read. However, if one is able to add having read this book among those achievements then at least that part of their life will not have been wasted. |
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| "Good gift idea" | 2007-01-27 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1DHGDN5K16VKC |
| I got this for my grandfather for Christmas. He was POW during WWII, and was wanting to read about Churchill's POW experiences. A big hit!! My grandfather couldn't put the book down. |
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| "Delightful churchill" | 2006-12-13 |
| - Reviewed By jc_charlotte |
| His writing is great; his stories are told in a refreshing, whimsical tone; and one gets the sense that he loves his life. Even though I was very familiar with the event of his life before reading this, I found it thoroughly engaging and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in this extraordinary man. |
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| "Churchill at his most human" | 2005-09-14 |
| - Reviewed By maximusone |
| This 372 page long book would be good, but no more, if it wasn't for the first 40-or-so pages, which are a gem. The book covers the first 30 years of Churchill's life and the first forty pages cover his childhood. Although Churchill had a miserable childhood - his father was distant, his mother more interested in lovers than in her son, and he was bullied at boarding school - Churchill narrates his story with unsurpassed wit and without any hard feelings for the ones that failed him. Some passages, like the description of how he was grappling with the beast called maths, are just hilarious. The first forty pages alone make this book a must read. In the rest of the book, the most interesting part is the story of Churchill's capture by the Boers and escape. You don't need to be interested in Churchill, the statesman, to like this book. Here he is at his most human and disarming. |
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 "A Window to the Past" | 2005-09-03 |
| - Reviewed By dabasan |
| Definitely a good read! Churchill recounts his early years with subtle wit and elegant style. Even the battle scenes kept me interested, which was an unexpected surprise. A good view into the life of a middle-class British soldier before the World Wars. |
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| "The "Adventure Tale" portion of Churchill's life." | 2005-06-16 |
| - Reviewed By wiscoguy |
Before the cigar-chomping, top-hat-wearing portly gentleman hit the scene, there was a young man who nearly flunked out of school, chased war around the world, played polo, participated in the world's last meaningful cavalry charge, was a war correspondent, and escaped imprisonment as a POW in the Boar War. Churchill got around plenty before settling down in Parliament and this is Churchill's own account of that part of his life.
Churchill's writing is quite engaging, and the book takes his exciting life and brings you into it. As good as autobiography gets. |
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| "Quite an amazing book" | 2004-05-21 |
| - Reviewed By riverman10 |
| Biographies are often interesting because the book is well written or because the subject had an extraordinary life. Churchill's autobiography is both. Churchill's early life was quite extraordinary. Using his connections (or more likely, his mother's bed partners), he was able to see service at many of the British Empire's hotspots between 1895 and 1905. He glosses over quite a bit. His mother and father both were somewhat dissolute personages but he presents an idealized portrait of them. But he gives in great detail the excitement that he experienced in India and the Sudan, and of course his daring escape from Boer captivity during the South African War. And the writing! Churchill was a wonderful writer. Despite his upper class origins, his father and mother blew most of their money. Churchill himself enjoyed high living. So Churchill for most of his life lived a rather hand to mouth existence. His writing and lectures are what paid the bills all those years. So his writing was well crafted and entertaining. |
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| "Get to know Winston Churchill" | 2004-05-03 |
| - Reviewed By clivey22 |
| Anyone who hated school may like this book very much. Churchill was a privileged aristocrat who viewed 'science' and 'democracy' as retrograde developments. And yet, any reader today would be naturally drawn towards the romantic, exciting, exotic picture of an empire that the young winston paints from someone born with common sense, good nature, pride and a hunger to play his part in glorious events. This book was written by Churchill when he was short of cash - it had to be successful. Also it was written well before he became a world-weary statesman. By so royaly entertaining his readers he betrays himself to us as a pretty down to earth and likeable character - perhaps very different to the complex man he really was, or the very great man he was eventually to become. One thing strikes me from the book is that Churchill was probably as unforgiving with himself as he was with other people - he comes across as someone with tremendous moral integrity and character. Yet, by the standards of many others he was seen as outspoken, bumptious, obdurate and opinionated, a war monger etc etc. Progress was never made by reasonable people and this book is a superb way to get to know this mercurial, unorthodox, unlikely hero. It is a story of his coming of age at the turn of the 18th century and is one of those books that all bold adventurous men should perhaps read at some time during their lives. A fantastic eye witness account of the British empire and the 'larger than life' people behind it. |
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| "Accessible Churchill" | 2003-04-01 |
| - Reviewed By vincentpoiriertokyo |
| Churchill presents us with a short and lively account of his early life, making this one of his more accessible works. We see it all: nanny-pampered, mother-neglected child; dim-witted schoolboy but top-notch military student; officer and reporter. In fact as a reporter in the Boer war, he worked as what we are calling today (during the Iraqi war) an embedded reporter. So deeply embedded that the Boers made him a POW though he was a non-combatant. My favourite chapters deal with his schooling. He laughs at himself, poking fun at his younger self's total ineptitude at subjects such as Latin and mathematics, all the while humbly pointing out that he became such a good writer because being perceived as such a dolt by his teaches, the only thing they'd bother teaching him was English. The accounts of his military life are interesting but are today overshadowed by the first and second world wars, so that I was unfamiliar with the background that led to conflicts in the Soudan or against the Boer. I recommend reading up on the Boer War in a good enclyclopedia. Througout the book, WSC displays wit and irony. WSC reminds his readers that following the Boer War, the public thought that no more wars would be fought among white people (don't ever expect WSC to be P.C.--he calls a spade a spade) and that World War One came along anyway. Since he was writing before WW2, the intent was clearly to wake his countrymen up to the possibility of future conflict. Recommended. |
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