The date of June 18, 1940 proved to be the most important day in the lives of two of the best-known world leaders of the 20th century: Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle.

World War II had taken an ugly turn in Europe with the fall of France, and both men took to BBC radio on that day to rally their respective sides, England and France, said Richard Vinen, author of The Last Titans: How Churchill and deGaulle Saved Their Nations and Transformed the World.

“Both men made critical speeches. It was Churchill’s ‘finest hour’ speech and de Gaulle’s initial call for French resistance," said Vinen, a professor of history at King’s College, London.

While Churchill’s famous call to arms (“Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”) was the result of 40 years of public speaking in the House of Commons, de Gaulle took to the radio microphone for the first time, two days after arriving in London, having been evacuated from his conquered France.

“Both Churchill and de Gaulle were radio stars,” said Vinen, referring to the four years of wartime speeches made by both men. BBC officials were impressed by de Gaulle’s efforts because he’d never had any experience as a radio broadcaster before.

Both men also played a role in how their respective countries came to grips with a new world order that precluded empires and was now led by the United States.

Vinen draws comparisons and similarities between the two men. “(Churchill) liked people and particularly the British. De Gaulle loved France, but he loved it as an abstraction separate from the French people,” he stated.

As to his next effort, Vinen is taking measure of these interesting times. “I feel history is moving under our feet as we talk. I’d like to know what’s about to happen before I start trying to write about it,” he said.

An upcoming story on the CrimeReads website (https://crimereads.com/) will look at the performances of movie/TV good guys who later took on bad-guy roles and vice versa. It can only be another story by Keith Roysdon, whose previous stories on CrimeReads include looks at writers Richard Matheson and Robert Bloch, a historic scan of Universal monsters, and a review of 1970s disaster movies.

Having served as a reporter and editor in Muncie, Ind. for some 40 years, Roysdon has written three novels, most recently Seven Angels. Now living in Knoxville, Tenn., Roysdon is also a partner in Constellate Creatives (https://constellatecreatives.com/), a one-stop shop that seeks to help writers publish books with editing and marketing services.

Marketing a book once it's published is the one thing new authors tend to dread, said Roysdon, happy to provide help in getting a new book noticed.

Roysdon said his offbeat entertainment stories are the result of an open-minded editor who sees the value in giving a creative talent free rein. “I’ve got to give Dwyer Murphy, my editor at CrimeReads, and everybody there, credit, because the more obscure thing that I can think of, it seems like they're on board with that,” he said.

Who but Roysdon would review Pray for the Wildcat, a TV movie from ABC made in the 1970s starring Andy Griffith as a corporate boardroom bully who makes life miserable for all those around him? This role flies in the face of the one most of us have for Griffith--good old Andy Taylor from Mayberry, said Roysdon.

The movie’s cast includes William Shatner, Robert Reid, and Lorraine Gary, who played Chief Brodie’s wife in Jaws, said Roysdon. Other character shifts noted in the article focus on players like Angela Lansbury and Fred MacMurray, he said. The story will be published soon on CrimeReads.

Writing stories for the crime website keeps Roysdon pretty busy in itself (he’s had more than 75 stories published), but along with the three novels, he also works on reading and editing other writers’ work on the growing Constellate site.

Recalling his time writing for the newspaper in Muncie where he did movie reviews from 1977 to 1990, a distinct period, said Roysdon, identifying it as a future project he’d like to tackle.

“It was a really good time for pictures, and that's something that I've considered writing about in the way of a movie book. But I don't know if I'll ever get around to it, because I've got so many other things I want to do,” said Roysdon.

Whatever Roysdon decides to do, you know the result will be distinctive—and just slightly offbeat.

"Making Democracy Count" by Ismar Volic

Ismar Volic is one math professor who wants to use mathematics to improve our democratic process. His book, Making Democracy Count: How Mathematics Improves Voting, Electoral Maps, and Representation, examines the mathematics that govern how our election systems work or, surprise, don’t work. Volic may be director of the Institute for Mathematics and Democracy at Wellesley College but this isn’t a math textbook. It’s a exploration on better ways to validate the voice of the majority .

If you’ve heard about topics like ranked choice voting or proportional representation, you may be aware of different approaches to elections. Volic provides the mathematical rationale for why we could be doing better when it comes to recognizing the voice of the people.

Volić just returned from a trip to his native Bosnia, the country from which he immigrated in the 1990s. Having seen war in that country, he’s well-acquainted with the importance of maintaining democracy.

Among the subjects Volic tackles in Making Democracy Count are how many of the ways we select candidates in the U.S., particularly when it comes to primaries, fall short, how blatantly devious gerrymandering is, and how dysfunctional the U.S. Electoral College is.

“Math is a clarifying way at looking at the world,” said Volic, who recognizes that his timing is reaching a wider audience than ever. “There is growing awareness of the faults in our voting systems, and I don’t mean fantasies of widespread voter fraud or conspiratorial voting machines,” he said.

Instead of gerrymandered districts that elect one person each, multi-member congressional districts, each with the members elected through proportional representation, would be fairer, he said. In Volic’s home state of Massachusetts, each of the nine congressional districts is represented by one person, the winner of the district election.

That means the Mass. representation now consists entirely of Democrats even though 30 percent of the voters may have voted Republican. A fairer way of deciding on representation would be to have fewer districts—say three—with three representatives from each selected. You would have the same number of representatives: nine, but you’d have Republicans represented, as well.

Conversely, Democrats, now excluded from Oklahoma's Republican slate of representatives, could have a voice under a system that used multi-representative districts.

Such a system would provide easier access for third parties, as well, said Volic.