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Bestselling author Erik Larson is widely known for masterful works of narrative nonfiction, and has a particular penchant for drawing a certain richness from historical snapshots \\u2014 the kinds of topics typically relegated to the footnotes of conventional history books. In a 2020 interview with\\xa0Rolling Stone\\xa0magazine, Larson said, \\u201cMy mission is to try to create as rich a historical experience as I can for the reader, so that when they\\u2019re done with the book, they come out of it feeling like maybe they lived briefly in a past time.\\u201d In his latest nonfiction title, #1 New York Times bestseller\\xa0The Splendid and the Vile, Larson added rich layers to a pivotal point in world history and inserted readers into the public and personal life of Winston Churchill during WWII.

Churchill faced colossal challenges from the very start: on his first day as prime minister of the U.K., Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium; not long after, Hitler\\u2019s bombing campaigns destroyed millions of homes and took tens of thousands of lives. How did Churchill not only keep his country together but also forge key alliances to ensure victory? In\\xa0The Splendid and the Vile, Larson dove into previously untapped sources \\u2014 including recently declassified files, intelligence reports, and personal diaries \\u2014 and offered a new lens on London\\u2019s darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill, his family, and his circle of advisors.

Joined by books writer Mary Ann Gwinn, Larson discussed how Churchill\\u2019s persevering leadership bound a country, and a family, together.

Erik Larson\\xa0is the author of six\\xa0New York Times\\xa0bestsellers, most recently\\xa0The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz. Erik\\u2019s\\xa0The Devil in the White City\\xa0is set to be a Hulu limited series; his\\xa0In the Garden of Beasts\\xa0is under option by Tom Hanks, for a feature film. He recently published an audio-original ghost story,\\xa0No One Goes Alone, which has been optioned by Netflix. Erik lives in Manhattan with his wife, who is a writer and retired neonatologist; they have three grown daughters.

Mary Ann Gwinn\\xa0writes about books and authors for\\xa0Kirkus Reviews,\\xa0The Los Angeles Times,\\xa0the\\xa0Seattle Times,\\xa0and other publications. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, she was the book editor of the\\xa0Seattle Times\\xa0from 1998 to 2017 and a judge for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. She\\u2019s a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

Buy the Book: The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz (Paperback)\\xa0from Elliott Bay Books

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