BOOK REVIEW: When Lions Roar, The Churchills and The Kennedys

With my interest in history overall, and having become a little fascinated with Winston Churchill (courtesy the BBC productions such as "Wartime Kitchen and Garden" and PBS "Homefires") and the fondness the British people held for him, I couldn't resist this title, which includes the Kennedys, another family I've only recently become interested in.  I was not disappointed in this book at all.

The book covers decades, starting with the Franklin D Roosevelt years in the White House and going beyond John F. Kennedy's assasination.  The Kennedy family ties to Winston Churchill first began in 1933 when Joseph Kennedy brought his family to England and spent some time at the Churchill home.  There began a long and sometimes tenuous association between two great families in two great countries.

The book is a tell all story, but not written in a trashy sensational manner.  It is however, an accurate accounting of the real and public lives of two families with enormous political influence in the world as well as in their own countries and the connected power influenced history in each other's country as well.

This is a hefty read at 643 pages but so fascinating that it hardly seems a lengthy book at all!  I highly recommend it if you are interested in historical and personal accounts of the Kennedys or the Churchills.