Saturday, June 09, 2007

New Book: The Diana Chronicles

I admit it: I'm going to have to read Tina Brown's new biography of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Brown had access to a number of people who knew Diana well and have not previously spoken for publication.

Fascinating tidbits for royalty watchers can be found in this article in London's Daily Mail.

More in USA Today and another article in the Daily Mail. The latter article contains some touching anecdotes about how Diana's sometime nemesis, Prince Philip, comforted William and Harry after their mother's death.

THE DIANA CHRONICLES is released this Tuesday, June 12th.

Christopher Andersen has a reasonably good track record writing well-researched People-ish celebrity bios, but his new book AFTER DIANA is controversial as he hauls out the old story questioning Prince Harry's paternity. It sounds like Brown's book is the one to pick up if you're in the market for a summer read on Diana.

If you're looking for a more serious royalty read, this summer my daughter is prepping for a fall college history class on the British Empire by reading Stanley Weintraub's great biography VICTORIA: BIOGRAPHY OF A QUEEN.

I bought my copy of VICTORIA at Harrod's in 1987. Little did I know then that a decade later the son of the owner of Harrod's would perish in the crash alongside Diana...

2 Comments:

Blogger jau said...

Why are you uninterested in the story of Harry's paternity? It seems plausible.

Somehow it surprises me that you're a royalty watcher!

6:46 AM  
Blogger Laura said...

I had mentally written the Harry story off a while back, though none of us can know for sure -- probably the bigger reason for my reticence to explore that particular story is compassion for Harry. He lost his mom at such a young age, I guess I feel it seems kind of mean-spirited for members of the public to potentially add to that loss by questioning his biological paternity... So much else about their lives is up for examination and discussion, by virtue of who they are.

Interest in royalty has been a natural outgrowth of my lifelong love of history and biographies...Marion Crawford's LITTLE PRINCESSES, by Elizabeth and Margaret's governess, was a favorite biography when I was young. :) I love the tangled web Victoria's descendants have woven, with the result that most European royalty are related to one another. Makes for some fascinating books!

Best wishes,
Laura

12:49 PM

12:50 PM  

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