"In eleventh grade, John Bowe's cousin Bill asked a classmate to prom. She said no. Bill responded by moving to the family basement--and staying there for the next forty-three years. But in 1992, at the age of fifty-nine, Bill surprised everyone who knew him: He got married. Bowe learned that Bill credited his turnaround to a non profit club he'd joined called Toastmasters International. Fascinated by the idea that speech training seemed to foster...

Traces the personal and political fortunes of King Henry VI, from the time of his childhood to youth and marriage to the beautiful but ruthless Margaret of Anjou, and through the power struggles of his subjects the Yorkists and Lancastrians, ending with the growing influence of sinister Richard, Duke of Gloucester.