Six Minutes in May

How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister

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Six Minutes in May

By: Nicholas Shakespeare

Narrated by: Peter Noble

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About this listen

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Six Minutes in May by Nicholas Shakespeare, read by Peter Noble.

London, May 1940. Britain is under threat of invasion and Neville Chamberlain’s government is about to fall. It is hard for us to imagine the Second World War without Winston Churchill taking the helm, but in Six Minutes in May Nicholas Shakespeare shows how easily events could have gone in a different direction.

It took just six minutes for MPs to cast the votes that brought down Chamberlain. Shakespeare moves from Britain’s disastrous battle in Norway, for which many blamed Churchill, on to the dramatic developments in Westminster that led to Churchill becoming Prime Minister. Uncovering fascinating new research and delving into the key players’ backgrounds, Shakespeare gives us a new perspective on this critical moment in our history.

*** Selected as a 2017 Book of the Year in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Observer and The Economist ***

‘A gripping story of Churchill’s unlikely rise to power’ Observer

‘Totally captivating. It will stand as the best account of those extraordinary few days for very many years’ Andrew Roberts

Nicholas ShakespearePeter NobleVintage Digital

20th Century

Elections & Political Process

Europe

Great Britain

Military

Modern

Political Science

Politics & Government

England

Winston Churchill

War

Royalty

Imperialism

United Kingdom

Interwar Period

20th Century Elections & Political Process Europe Great Britain Military Modern Political Science Politics & Government England Winston Churchill War Royalty Imperialism United Kingdom Interwar Period

Critic reviews

History books should give us insight and information, surprise and entertainment, and allow us to see the world, an incident or a character differently. Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May delivers in abundance. (Anthony Sattin)

Unputdownable… Us[es] new evidence with a novelist’s feeling for personality and atmosphere (John Gray)

Of the abundant new books on the Second World War, Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May…takes the prize. The familiar story of how Churchill unexpectedly became prime minister in 1940 has never been told so amusingly, nor in such detail (Simon Heffer)

Nicholas Shakespeare’s Six Minutes in May: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister…is as gripping as a novel. Apart from being meticulously researched, thoroughly original and beautifully written, the book is an important reminder of the fact that the direction of history can change in a heartbeat (Peter Frankopan)

An eloquent study in how quickly the political landscape can change -- and history with it

A superbly written drama... Shakespeare's research is thorough and he has a novelist's flair for depicting the characters and motives of great and lesser men...Fascinating. (Book of the Week)

Shakespeare brings both meticulous research and fictional artistry to illuminate the machinery of government under extreme stress and the abrasive conflict of large, self-confident personalities. It's a superb achievement. (Ian McEwan)

Riveting…never less than gripping. But the real delight of its book is the convincing, and often revelatory, portraits of the main protagonists.

Brilliant, meticulous…This scintillating joy of a book — with a military narrative of British shame as well handled as William Dalrymple’s Return of a King, and a treatment of 20th-century British politics, romance, humiliation and desire as grandly realised as Anthony Powell’s great novel sequence….Shakespeare’s narrative is not just more reliable than Churchill’s, but more fun.

Superb: far and away the best account of the moment which changed our national life and the world, and filled with extraordinary new details. Shakespeare brings a novelist's eye to the characters he writes about, but it is the extraordinary way he marshals his material, far more extensive than I've come across before, which makes this book quite simply magnificent. (John Simpson)

Most relevant

This is a superbly balanced view of the events that led to the resignation of Chamberlain and his replacement by Churchill. It is well-sourced and a very helpful appraisal of the skills, weaknesses and personalities of those involved in the appointment of Churchill as PM.
Unlike popular “knowledge” of Churchill as a messianic figure who can do no wrong and of Chamberlain as a weak fool, this account provides a far more accurate telling of who these men actually were. No mere caricatures or hero/villain from a poor movie script, these were real men with fascinating characters who played an enormous role in our history.
The author fleshes out this story with wonderful accounts from the lives of Lord Halifax, Leo Amery, and many other political and military figures.
Finally Peter Noble narrates. That should be sufficient to indicate a highly enjoyable audiobook. He is a super narrator, not drawn into attempting accents or impressions, but uses his wonderful voice to bring the story to life.