40TH READINGS AT CHARTWELL BOOKSELLERS celebrates our 40th Anniversary with the 40 best books about Winston Churchill published during the store's forty year existence. We are toasting these books chronologically with a new video reading by a distinguished guest reader every week.
The series commenced on the exact 40th Anniversary of our opening, April 11, 2023, with actor JOHN LITHGOW reading from "THE LAST LION," by William Manchester.
This week we present Book #13: "LONG SUNSET: Memoirs of Winston Churchill's Last Private Secretary," by Anthony Montague Browne. Published in 1995, it is a splendid account, from the inside, of Churchill in his final years, 1952-1965. Our guest reader is the incomparable, Tony Award-winning actor, REED BIRNEY.
ANTHONY MONTAGUE BROWN (1923-2013) closely attended to Winston Churchill as his last private secretary right up to Churchill's death in 1965. Mr. Montague Browne did not keep a diary but he did write a splendid book about his Churchill years," LONG SUNSET: Memoirs of Winston Churchill’s Last Private Secretary." An RAF pilot during the war, and a diplomat before and after his time with Winston Churchill, we now also know that, during his early Churchill years, Mr. Montague Browne had an affair with Jane Portal, one of his boss’s principal personal secretaries. In 2016 - three years after Anthony Montague Brown’s death - DNA testng proved that he was, in fact, the father of Portal’s son, Justin Welby, who is, to this day, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
REED BIRNEY is an esteemed American actor acclaimed for his stage work, including a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play for "The Humans" in 2016; three Off-Broadway Obie Awards; and a special Drama Desk award in 2011 honoring his full acting career. Onscreen he starred in the films "Mass" (2021), and "The Menu" (2022), and had recurring roles in "Gossip Girl" (2007-2009), "House of Cards" (2013-2017), "The Blacklist" (2014-2015), and "Home Before Dark" (2021-2022), among many others.
ALL BOOKS IN THIS READING ARE AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE:
www.chartwellb...
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9 июл 2023
