A Recommended Summer Read--Michael Dobbs Churchill Novels:

For my birthday this year my in-laws got me the 4 book series of historical novels by Michael Dobbs about Winston Churchill, set against the backdrop of World War II. I enjoyed them immensely. They are very enjoyable reads while also informative and insightful of Dobbs's subjective views of the major players of the era. Dobbs interweaves stories about the impact of the war on some ordinary people, which in a nice novelistic twist usually end up intersecting with Churchill's activities. Dobbs also mixes in some interesting speculations on some interesting historical events that help move the narrative along. The tone of the books is definitely pro-Churchill, although not uniformly so. I know that many of my libertarian fellow-travelers are not as enamored of Churchill as I, so I mention that here.

The first book is Winston's War, which is also the best of the lot. Three other books follow. I liked them all, although I thought that the second one (Never Surrender) dragged a little bit but the last two, Churchill's Hour and Churchill's Triumph, were strong, so keep going even if Never Surrender doesn't catch your fancy. Amazon readers also seem to like Never Surrender the least of the lot as well. I read them in the chronological order in which the action occurs (which is the order I describe above), but I'm not sure that Dobbs actually published them in that order.

Engaging summertime or general leisuretime fare for anyone whose tastes run to historical fiction of this sort.