This week on Q&A, our guest for 90 minutes is Paul Reid, co-author, with William Manchester of the third and final volume of the historical trilogy “The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965.” Reid tells how he met and befriended co-author William Manchester who then invited Reid to complete the third volume of the book. He describes how he blended the hundreds of pages Manchester completed before his death, with Reid’s own research to produce the biography of the final twenty-five years of Winston Churchill’s life. The story begins shortly after Churchill became prime minister as he rallied his country to stand against the aggression of Nazi Germany. Reid explains the relationship between Churchill and world leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin. He shares stories of Churchill’s private life both in and out of government. He describes how he went about researching Churchill’s life and tells about meeting and interviewing many of Churchill’s family members and acquaintances.
Paul Reid graduated from the Harvard University Extension School in 1990. In 1996 Reid joined the Palm Beach Coast, a Cox newspaper, as a features writer. He was named 1998 Cox Newspapers writer of the year. In 2003 he was embedded with US Marines at the start of the Iraq War. This is his first book. He is married and lives in western North Carolina.