Winston Churchill

Author, Politician

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, RA was a British statesman, soldier and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955.

Winston Churchill's 33 Book Recommendations

• Gulliver's Travels: “The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels are dear to British homes.”
• The Wealth of Nations
• Treasure Island: “My father gave me Treasure Island, and I remember the delight with which I devoured it.”
• Infantry Fire Tactics: “So I ordered Hamley's Operations of War, Prince Kraft's Letters on Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery, Maine's Infantry Fire Tactics, together with a number of histories dealing with the American Civil, Franco-German and Russo-Turkish wars.”
• A Sentimental Journey: “I had replied with some complacency that, though it was attributed often to the Bible, it really occurred in Sterne's Sentimental Journey.”
• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “I devoured Gibbon. I rode triumphantly through it from end to end and enjoyed it all.”
• Memoirs of My Life and Writings: “So pleased was I with The Decline and Fall that I began at once to read Gibbon's Autobiography, which luckily was bound up in the same edition.”
• Lays of Ancient Rome: “I had learnt The Lays of Ancient Rome by heart and loved them.”
• The History of England: “I now embarked on that splendid romance, and I voyaged with full sail in a strong wind.”
• Critical and Historical Essays, Contributed to the Edinburgh Review: “Not less than in his History, I revelled in his Essays.”
• The Republic: “From November to May I read for four or five hours every day history and philosophy. Plato's Republic... the Politics of Aristotle, edited by Dr. Welldon himself; Schopenhauer on Pessimism; Malthus on Population; Darwin's Origin of Species: all interspersed with other books of lesser standing.”
• The Politics: “From November to May I read for four or five hours every day history and philosophy. Plato's Republic... the Politics of Aristotle, edited by Dr. Welldon himself; Schopenhauer on Pessimism; Malthus on Population; Darwin's Origin of Species: all interspersed with other books of lesser standing.”
• Studies in Pessimism: “From November to May I read for four or five hours every day history and philosophy. Plato's Republic... the Politics of Aristotle, edited by Dr. Welldon himself; Schopenhauer on Pessimism; Malthus on Population; Darwin's Origin of Species: all interspersed with other books of lesser standing.”
• An Essay on the Principle of Population: “From November to May I read for four or five hours every day history and philosophy. Plato's Republic... the Politics of Aristotle, edited by Dr. Welldon himself; Schopenhauer on Pessimism; Malthus on Population; Darwin's Origin of Species: all interspersed with other books of lesser standing.”
• The Origin of Species: “From November to May I read for four or five hours every day history and philosophy. Plato's Republic... the Politics of Aristotle, edited by Dr. Welldon himself; Schopenhauer on Pessimism; Malthus on Population; Darwin's Origin of Species: all interspersed with other books of lesser standing.”
• The Martyrdom of Man: “The first of these books was The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade. This was Colonel Brabazon's great book... It is in fact a concise and well-written universal history of mankind.”
• History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe: “Mr. Lecky, in his Rise and Influence of Rationalism and History of European Morals, both of which I read this winter, established in my mind a predominantly secular view.”
• History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne: “Mr. Lecky, in his Rise and Influence of Rationalism and History of European Morals, both of which I read this winter, established in my mind a predominantly secular view.”
• Bartlett's Familiar Quotations: “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently.”
• Fire and Sword in the Sudan: “Slatin Pasha... whose book Fire and Sword in the Soudan is a classic in its sphere.”
• Kidnapped: “I spent the greater part of it reading Stevenson's Kidnapped. Those thrilling pages which describe the escape of David Balfour and Alan Breck in the glens awakened sensations with which I was only too familiar.”
• The Bible: “I might therefore console myself from the Bible: 'Better a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king.'”
• Lord Randolph Churchill: “He has enriched our language with a series of biographical studies, terse, pregnant and authoritative... Pitt, Peel, Randolph Churchill, are literary gems.”
• Man and Superman: “Candida, Major Barbara, and Man and Superman riveted the attention of the intellectual world.”
• Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph: “As a narrative of war and adventure, as a portrayal of all that the Arabs mean to the world, it is unsurpassed. It ranks with the greatest books ever written in the English language.”
• The Pilgrim's Progress: “The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels are dear to British homes.”
• Robinson Crusoe: “The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels are dear to British homes.”
• Talleyrand: “No one who has read Mr. Duff Cooper's Talleyrand requires other assurances of his skill in narrative or of his literary competence and quality.”
• Mein Kampf: “We have only to read Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, to see that the French are not the only foreign nation against whom the anger of rearmed Germany may be turned.”
• Pale Horse: A Novel of Revolutionary Russia: “In his novel, The Pale Horse, written under an assumed name, Savinkov has described with brutal candor the part he played in the murders of M. de Plehve and the Grand Duke Serge.”
• The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism and Fascism: “He was kind enough to give me a copy of his Magnum Opus, 'The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism.'”
• Candida: “Candida, Major Barbara, and Man and Superman riveted the attention of the intellectual world.”
• Pygmalion and Major Barbara: “Recently I took my children to Major Barbara... But in Major Barbara there was not a character requiring to be re-drawn, not a sentence nor a suggestion that was out of date.”

Books written by Winston Churchill

• The Second World War
• The World Crisis, 1911-1918
• A History of the English-Speaking Peoples
• My Early Life: 1874-1904
• Marlborough: His Life and Times, Book One
• The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan
• Savrola
• Painting as a Pastime
• Great Contemporaries
• Thoughts and Adventures
• The Story of the Malakand Field Force