No comments about Jennie: The Life of the American Beauty Who Became the Toast--and Scandal--of Two Continents, Ruled an Age and Raised a Son--Winston Churchill--Who Shaped History.

5 comments about The Churchill Factors: Creating Your Finest Hour.

1. I have followed Larry Kryske's career for many years. As a motivational speaker he has reached thousands with the leadership principles of Sir Winston S. Churchill in a lively and practical way. In one conference that I attended some years ago, Mr. Kryske shared the same platform with a world-renowned historian on the life of Churchill. The "renowned historian" gave a written, and read, presentation on some aspect of Churchill, which droned on for over an hour. The audience was visibly bored and fidgity. Then afterwards, Larry got up and gave a 45-minute presentation on the "Churchill Factors" employing humor while at the same time, fleshing out his presentation with an oil painting demonstration! To say the least, the audience was mesmerized and completely engaged with his presentation. Larry is also a talented artist!
   
   "The Churchill Factors" is an anthology of a lifetime of personal study and public presentations at conferences and other venues. Mr. Kryske is a recognized leading authority on the life of Churchill, but far beyond that, Larry has a rare gift of sifting through massive material in order to provide the listener -- here the reader -- with a life-changing study of practical wisdom. I keep a copy of his book handy both at work, and at home at the kitchen table, and make time to read a page here, and a page there, then contemplate the basic message to apply to my life.
   
   "The Churchill Factors" has practical information for everyone, young and old, no matter what job you do in life, no matter what position you hold. The message is clear: you are on this planet for a purpose, and your finest hour is yet to come!



2. Churchill was, without question, a fine man and example for us to follow. Learning more about Churchill, what made him great, and how he influenced history is a worthy endeavor.

   Being motivated and inspired to pursue higher objectives in life, to really make a difference in the world is also a worthy endeavor. Emulating features of Churchill's life to craft your own success is also worthwhile.

   As I began this book, I found myself reading sections to my wife. Good stuff here! The author's own words as well as the quotes from Churchill and other luminaries were getting my attention. I began to understand why several of my friends are such devoted students of Churchill and his influence. The first 37 pages were great.

   Then Chapter 5 hit me like a bucket of ice water. I discovered to my astonishment that the author is also a distributor of behavioral style learning materials produced by Inscape Publishing. Most of the balance of the book is a description of the four principal behavioral styles and how various aspects of Churchill's attributes relate to the styles. I was tempted to toss the book away as a blatant commercial for Inscape products. There was nothing on the cover of the book, in the introduction, or in the title that suggested that this was the kind of book I discovered . . . unless you look closely at the category on the back cover and note that the words "SELF HELP" follow "BUSINESS."

   The four behavioral styles of drivers, influencers, supporters, and conceptualizers were each presented with some explanation. Churchill's traits were related to each, apparently to validate for persons with each style that they, too, can be like Churchill. I felt some were rather force-fit. As a disclosure, I have used Inscape instruments and behavioral style knowledge for two decades and am a former national contract trainer for the company; I am quite familiar with the products and their philosophies.

   At the end of the book is a blatant promotion for a wide range of Inscape products. For those readers who are interested in learning more about behavioral styles, it's helpful to have this catalog available. For those who were really interested in what made Churchill great-from an author touted as a Churchill expert, it's offensive.

   I almost rated this book with three stars instead of four (out of five), but there is some good content. Kryske does relate some strong material, particularly in the forepart of the book before he got into the behavioral styles. The book is heavily seasoned with quotes (as call-outs); there's a quote from someone on almost every page. Many of the quotes are from Churchill, but also cited are other historical figures and present-day motivational speakers.




3. The Churchill Factors: Creating Your Finest Hour was very easy to understand. The message was simple, clear, and practical. Too many self-help books are mumbo-jumbo consultant hype about approaches that never really work. I found this book was honest and extremely usable. Everyone will be able to identify with at least one of the styles in the book. There are several chapters for each one. By applying the Action This Day questions at the end of the chapters helped me to overcome some of the obstacles I deal with at work and at home. I definitely was surprised that this was more than the usual leadership book about a famous person. The Churchill Factors made it easy for me to see why Winston Churchill was such a multi-faceted personality. Everyone would benefit from using his methodology. It's worked for me!



4. I am a high school senior who had to write a report on a famous leader. I selected Winston Churchill. I didn't really know much about him but found exactly what I needed in this book. I ordered it online and it arrived three days later! The book told me how I can become a leader. I could identify with some of the problems Churchill had during his life. His life was full of problems but he was still able to be successful. I think this book will help me when I go on to college next year. I already have some new ideas I want to try out at work. I would really recommend this book to others.



5. I'm a great admirer of Winston Churchill. This book is not another biography. Rather, I found a clear, understandable explanation of Churchill's leadership formula. This book showed me how to use the Churchill Factors in my life. The goal setting chapters were the best I have found on the subject. I also liked the author's encouragement concerning taking risks and overcoming obstacles.

1 comments about The Revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr.

1. Revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr was one of the most important historical moments in Welsh history but its not very well covered by historians. R.R. Davies' effort to correct that situation proves to be somewhat successful. This book proves to be very well researched, quite informative about the revolt and its background as well as the consequences the people of Wales paid for supporting such a revolt. The author clearly gives out the causes and effects of Owain Gly Dwr's actions and results.
   
   Where the book fell short - at least in my humble opinion - was that its written without much flair or energy. The text - informative and interesting as they were - proves to be quite dry and unexciting. In some way, it was like reading a college text book.
   
   But the book was well supported with maps, figures and several family tree lines that help make the events and people more understandable. Ironic, as the author himself wrote, we seem to know more about Owain Glyn Dwr's revolt then the actual man himself. Lack of a primary sources even prevent us of knowing what he looked like much less, his personality or character.
   
   This book was primary written for serious student of the medieval period regarding Welsh and English history. A beginner reader may get bore with the text since the book is bit hard to "get into". Despite of the exciting title, its not a very exciting book to read.

No comments about Coleridge & Wordsworth in the West Country.

No comments about The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory, 1874-1932.

2 comments about Empires of the Plain: Henry Rawlinson and the Lost Languages of Babylon.

1. At initial glance, any biography of Sir Henry Rawlinson would seem to be a ready made best-seller. Here was a man who found time to decipher three ancient languages over several decades, while still keeping his day job of fighting wars and conducting diplomacy. Thus, if a writer focused just on Rawlinson's life, the resulting biography should be both entertaining and informative. But, Adkins' real interest lies in archeology. Consequently, she can't resist spending extra time detailing the elements of cuneiform creation and decipherment. These details, while mildly interesting, can't compare to the better story of Rawlinson's life. As a result, it's hard for the non-archeologist reader to maintain enthusiasm through the book's non-biography portions.
   
   It seems that Adkins the scientist was fighting with Adkins the would-be popular writer when this book was written, because it sometimes reads like two distinct books. The end result of this dichotomy is a story whose sum isn't greater than its parts. Empires of the Plain isn't bad. But, it would have been a better book had Adkins focused a bit less on the science and a bit more on the biography.



2. This book tells the story of Henry Rawlinson -- British soldier, diplomat, and amateur linguist in the 1820s, '30s, and '40s. His stomping ground: Persia and what is now Iraq. His principal claim to fame is the decipherment of cuneiform, giving us the ability to read for the first time texts that were between 2500 and 4000 years old.
   
   In this endeavor he was entirely self-taught, virtually cut off from potential colleagues in Britain and on the continent, and working under the most hostile conditions imaginable. To decipher cuneiform, he had to first acquire samples of ancient text -- which in one especially important instance meant clinging to a cliff-face hundreds of feet off the ground and laboriously copying the strange script into a notebook.
   
   The book itself is well written, well illustrated with drawings and photographs, and filled with stories of Rawlinson's contemporaries -- including real heroes, like Henry Layard, who excavated Nineveh and Babylon, and not a few semi-villains. All in all, an amazing story and a terrific book.

1 comments about Sir John Hawkins: Queen Elizabeth's Slave Trader.

1. Those of us raised on tales of the Armada, and the gallant defense of the English homeland, will immediately recognize Sir John Hawkins as one of the fabulous Four heroes who repelled the Spanish attacks (the other three being Howard, Drake and Frobisher). Less admirably, Hawkins is also notorious for his freebooting in the Carribean, wherein he sought to bust the Spanish monopoly on slave-trading. Like Sir Francis Drake, Hawkins was a master of staging a phony "raid" on local Spanish officials who were all too keen to buy the Englishman's wares - but needed to stage a token resistace to the interlopers in order to satisfy King Philip that the dreaded English had forced them to trade at gunpoint. Kelsey tells Hawkins's life story passably well, but the narrative is, for the most part, an unexciting one; for a character this infamous, one might have expected something more.

2 comments about The Wild Geese of the Antrim Macdonnells.

1. I discovered this book's existence from a bibliography in a similar book about Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone (that of the Flight of the Earls), by Sean O'Faolain. This is a related story about the similar exile and diaspora of the Ulster clan McDonnell around Europe, following the Protestant usurption of Catholic James II in the Glorious Rovolution. It details the different cadet branches of the of McDonnell family from different generations who left Ireland and formed Irish Regiments, fought for foreign kings, aswell as supported the Jacobite cause from abroad.
   
   It is a truly astonishing tale of Irish family history aswell as personal narrative European history of the conflicts and wars fought within Europe throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
   
   However, because of the former it did seem to be a book that can only be fully appreciated by fellow McDonnells and not necessarily by the general reader, who could, through certain tracts react by exclaiming, "so what?" to it all. Because of this I have to say I also struggled to remember the different McDonnells and their kinsmen despite three genealogical charts contained in the book.
   
   The research is excellent, however, using the Stuart Papers at Windsor and several other archives around Europe. The writing is clear and concise and despite the complicated narrative which travels from one family and time period in each chapter I felt I came to understand a small part of Irish history in Europe.



2. This book examines the problems confronting the Irish immigrants to Europe by concentrating on the lives of a series of emigrants from one Irish family, the MacDonnells of Antrim. A continuous succession of MacDonnells served in the armies of Spain, France and Austria between 1600 and 1820. One of them kept a diary of his experiences with Bonnie Prince Charlie in the '45 rebellion, another was a Spanish admiral at Trafalgar. Other Irish families covered by the book include the O'Neills, Magennises, O'Briens, Maguires, Butlers, Wogans and Sarsfields.

No comments about Michael Collins: A Life in Pictures.

No comments about Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third.