Parkys People - by Michael Parkinson - a collection of interviews by Michael Parkinson. A good book to dip into -
I am not convince that Michael Parkinson is a great interviewer - for example in 1999 still asking Paul McCartney about his first meeting with John Lennon - surely something that had been covered endlessly. On the other hand, the rather dull and banal nature of the questions often lets the interviewer get across what they want. Occasionally this results in the person going through the motions and repeating answers to the well known top 10 questions I am always asked, more often it does allow someone with something interesting to say to say it. Putting people at their ease to be interviewed is a skill and Parkinson has that and he does try some tougher questions too. Overall I prefer his style to the interviewer who is all about themselves.
Hitler - the Victory that nearly was by Bruce Quarrie plots an all too convincing alternate version of WW2 in which Hitler wins.
Churchill Defiant - 1945-1955 by Barbara Leaming. This is a great book setting out the political life of Winston Churchill from 1945 to 1955 a period usually skipped over with a brief oh he became Prime Minister again didn't do much and resigned. This book gives a great insight into Churchill's struggles within the Conservative Party,(where many people were keen he should step down as soon as WW2 was over, (some before that even had never wanted him to be leader at all) and his efforts to secure a peaceful settlement between the USSR and the USA and Western Europe which would avoid a war, use of nuclear weapons and more besides. As this elderly and quite ill man out manoeuvred his Cabinet and US Presidents, they couldn't quite decide whether he was senile or in possession of devilish cunning. It seems he had the cunning but not in the end the ability to shape events as he would have wished.
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Hitler - the Victory that nearly was by Bruce Quarrie plots an all too convincing alternate version of WW2 in which Hitler wins.
I always thought,it would have been better for Britain if we did what America did,keep out till 1942.
What good did we do by being bombed to nearly oblivion in 1940.We survived by the skin of our teeth.We were just as lucky at Dunkirk.We could have easily lost our army.
We would have faired far better,both economically and in post war empire had we feigned neutrality while building up our armed forces.
Hitler would have taken Russia,but still at quite a cost.But it might have pre empted the cold war.I think America would have wanted to stop Hitler,as would we at some point.But we could have been far better armed and prepared.
Their would have been resistance in Russia as their was in France.He would have had to tie up a lot of his armed forces keeping Russia.
We nearly bankrupted ourselves and had lend lease etc to the US.If we went to war later we would have prospered much better like the USA did.
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