This engaging biography invites readers to dinner with Winston Churchill and his political guests in the years surrounding WWII. A friend once said of Winston Churchill: “He is a man of simple tastes; he is quite easily satisfied with the best of everything.” But for Churchill, dinners were about more than good food, excellent champagnes, and Havana cigars. “Everything” included the opportunity to use the table both as a stage on which to display his brilliant conversational talents and as an intimate setting in which to glean gossip and diplomatic insights and to argue for the many policies he espoused over his long political career. In this riveting, informative, and entertaining account, Cita Stelzer draws on previously untapped material, diaries of guests, and a wide variety of other sources to tell of some of the key dinners at which Churchill presided before, during, and after World War II. An “acutely revealing” and eloquent look at one of Great Britain’s most impactful prime ministers, Dinner with Churchill offers delicious new insights into the food, cocktails, and conversations that shaped history (The Times Literary Supplement).

"From the breakout star of MasterChef Australia, Dan Churchill's ... cookbook that will educate, motivate, and inspire men to put on an apron and turn on the oven. Attention, dudes: you no longer have an excuse to avoid the kitchen. Dan Churchill has written a cookbook for guys who have always wanted to cook, but don't know where to start; boyfriends who are intimated by a frying pan; and sons who have too long relied on their parents for meals. These mouth-watering recipes are easy to read and, most important, easy to replicate ... Divided into sections based on everyday scenarios and featuring forty-five recipes, DudeFood shares the secrets to cooking a repertoire of eggs, seafood, poultry, meats, vegetables, sandwiches, and even desserts ... Packed with helpful tips and shortcuts, as well as beautiful photographs, this book will turn any dude into a cook"--

Churchill is well-known for his hearty appetite and love of food. This book gives a fascinating insight into what he ate during the Second World War, containing over 250 delicious recipes created by his personal cook, Georgina Landemare. From mouthwatering cakes, biscuits and puddings, to healthy salads and warming soups, it revives some forgotten British classics and traditional French fare. Including timeless recipes still popular today (coq au vin, potato salad, and chocolate cake) as well as some more unusual concoctions (Cervelles Connaught, or ‘curried brains’), it reveals the food that sustained Churchill during his ‘finest hour.’

A friend once said of Churchill “He is a man of simple tastes; he is quite easily satisfied with the best of everything.” But dinners for Churchill were about more than good food, excellent champagnes and Havana cigars. “Everything” included the opportunity to use the dinner table both as a stage on which to display his brilliant conversational talents, and an intimate setting in which to glean gossip and diplomatic insights, and to argue for the many policies he espoused over a long life.In this riveting, informative and entertaining book, Stelzer draws on previously untapped material, diaries of guests, and a wide variety of other sources to tell of some of the key dinners at which Churchill presided before, during and after World War II– including the important conferences at which he used his considerable skills to attempt to persuade his allies, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, to fight the war according to his strategic vision.

To maintain the pace at which he worked as a parliamentarian, cabinet minister, war leader, writer and painter, Churchill required a vast female staff of secretaries, typists and others. For these women Churchill was an intimidating boss; he was a man of prodigious energy, who imposed unusual and demanding schedules on those around him, and who combined a callous-seeming disregard with sincere solicitude for their well-being. Churchill was no ordinary employer: he did not live by the clock on the office wall. He expected those who worked with and for him to live by that timetable. Despite these often unreasonable demands, Churchill inspired an enduring loyalty and affection amongst the women who worked for him. Drawing on the wealth of oral testimonies of Churchill's many secretaries held in the Churchill Archive in Cambridge, Cita Stelzer – author of Dinner with Churchill – brings to life the experiences of a legion of women whose stories have hitherto remained unpublished in journals and letters. In recapturing their memories of working for and with Churchill – of famous people met, of travels abroad, of taking dictation in non-air-conditioned aeroplanes, of working though whisky-fuelled nights – she paints an original and memorable biographical portrait of one of the twentieth century's iconic statesmen.

"Thoroughly researched and well written, this book astounds the reader as to how its subject managed to get away with all the things he did. The author tells a good story about a bad man and his wartime escapades." —WWII History Magazine Captain Douglas Berneville-Claye was serving with the fledgling SAS with fellow officers such as David Stirling and Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne when he was captured in the Western Desert. He was ‘turned’ and became a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS. Collaboration with the enemy was confirmed when dressed as an SS captain he approached remnants of the British Free Corps; the Waffen-SS unit composed of renegade British nationals. He exhorted them to serve under his command against Russian forces. Post-war Berneville-Claye was investigated by MI5 for treachery. Following an Army court-martial he was dishonorably dismissed and sentenced to six months imprisonment. Upon release, his escapades and private life were no less contentious. A philanderer and bigamist, he married four times, sired ten children and rubbed shoulders with the criminal underworld in and out of prison. Eventually he succeeded in emigrating to Australia. Thanks to the author’s painstaking research, this is a compelling yet shocking biography of one of the most intriguing, colorful and disreputable characters of his era. How he escaped with his life is a question readers will ponder.

In February 1942, intelligence officer Victor Jones erected 150 tents behind British lines in North Africa. "Hiding tanks in Bedouin tents was an old British trick," writes Nicholas Rankin. German general Erwin Rommel not only knew of the ploy, but had copied it himself. Jones knew that Rommel knew. In fact, he counted on it--for these tents were empty. With the deception that he was carrying out a deception, Jones made a weak point look like a trap. In A Genius for Deception, Nicholas Rankin offers a lively and comprehensive history of how Britain bluffed, tricked, and spied its way to victory in two world wars. As Rankin shows, a coherent program of strategic deception emerged in World War I, resting on the pillars of camouflage, propaganda, secret intelligence, and special forces. All forms of deception found an avid sponsor in Winston Churchill, who carried his enthusiasm for deceiving the enemy into World War II. Rankin vividly recounts such little-known episodes as the invention of camouflage by two French artist-soldiers, the creation of dummy airfields for the Germans to bomb during the Blitz, and the fabrication of an army that would supposedly invade Greece. Strategic deception would be key to a number of WWII battles, culminating in the massive misdirection that proved critical to the success of the D-Day invasion in 1944. Deeply researched and written with an eye for telling detail, A Genius for Deception shows how the British used craft and cunning to help win the most devastating wars in human history.