WINSTON CHURCHILL

When reading Churchill’s own words, Richard Matthews throws off his refined English accent and becomes the voice that was once the voice of England, the voice of the free world, the enraged bulldog with a lisp. You can see the spittle fly. “Thush, I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence, which is a noble thing,” Churchill wrote, recalling three years spent in a remedial writing class. He went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature and, arguably, WWII. “Shivolozation” was saved, the Nazi undone. John Keegan is an extraordinarily gifted historian. This cameo biography delights the ear and lifts the spirit. B.H.C. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 03]