1 comments about Little Girl Lost: The Troubled Childhood of Princess Diana by the Woman Who Raised Her.

1. No, I don't agree with the earlier review. I didn't find this a story about the author as much as a story about what it's like inside the home of an English lord. I see no more straying to personal storytelling than can be found in the books by Stephen Barry about his life as valet to Prince Charles.

   Is this a rose-colored view of Diana's childhood? Perhaps. I'll allow the author the privilege of her opinion. Afterall, she was closer to the subject than us outsiders and thus may be right. I feel it is worth taking what the author says into consideration.

3 comments about The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince: from contemporary letters, diaries and chronicles, including Chandos Herald's Life of the Black Prince.

1. Read this for graduate history course in medieval history.
   Richard Barber's edited works of "The Life and Campaigns of the Black Prince," is one of the best primary sources of the fourteenth-century. Unlike many historians' accounts, Edward's prose make for an engaging read. Edward's writings may be short on the type of battlefield details that modern historians yearn for; however, they are rich in explaining some of the tactical decision-making made by Edward III before and during the Crécy campaign.
   
   The Black Prince noted that Edward III's purpose for the invasion of France, which started the military action in the Hundred Years War, was to conduct a chevauchée, which was essentially a procession of the army through the countryside that pillaged as it traveled. Edward III then intended to use his superior mobility to make his escape up the coast to Flanders without having to fight a major battle with the numerically superior French forces. However, Crécy was the sight of the first major battle of The Hundred Years' War and was a rousing success for the invading English army of Edward III. The battle, which took place on just two days in August of 1346, was emblematic of the tactical successes that the British enjoyed at the battles of Poitiers and Agincourt.
   
   The book accounts the skill and courage that the Black Prince and his men fought with as they fended off several waves of French attacks on that day and the next day as well. The book has an excellent account about the sixteen-year-old Black Prince's baptism by fire in battle. "There he learnt that knightly skill which he later put to excellent use at the battle of Poitiers, where he captured the French king." Although heavily outnumbered, Edward III's longbow men were the force multiplier that garnered a stunning victory for the British over the French. Most estimates of the longbow tactics used in the battle state the over one-half million arrows fired by the English easily cut down the French cavalry. Thus, the longbow, and the brilliant way in which it was employed, was responsible for the lopsided casualty figures of the battle. Although casualty figures are somewhat unreliable, most sources put the French losses at one-third of the French nobility-about 12,000 men in all, against the English losses of 150 to 1,000 total. Froissart sums up the mastery of the longbow men and the tactics they employed turning them into a weapon of mass destruction and a force multiplier. "They were some of the finest, most highly trained and militarily efficient troops that any nation ever put into the field of battle." The battle of Crécy taught all the armies of Europe that the longbow would reign as the supreme weapon in battle for the next 100 years.
   
   Ten years later in 1356, and a few years after the ravages of the Black Death, the Black Prince conducted and won the most valuable battle of the Hundred Year's War, at Poitiers. The Black Prince won a stunning victory over King John II of France, culminating with the king being captured and killing and capturing of thousands of other French noblemen. Clearly, this action far surpassed the victory won at Crécy. France's military was decimated. The country was pushed to the brink of political collapse, and was left with a tremendous debt in both money and territory to pay for the king's ransom.
   
   Recommended reading for those interested in medieval history.



2. I gave this book five stars for its originality. I loved that the author (who has a number of great works) pretty much steps back and allows the people of the 14th century to do most of the talking. After all, who better then them to tell their own story?
   It was also interesting to read how the Black Prince's contemporaries viewed him. Which was not at all like the tyrant recent historians have made him to be. But this book was more then just about the Black Prince, it gave an insight into medieval warfare and what these soldiers truly lived.



3. LONG LIVE THE PRINCE OF WALES.

   THE BLACK PRINCE ALWAYS TRIUMPHS.

   KILLER RABBITS

5 comments about The Royal Family.

1. Even as an avid reader, I was a little intimidated by the sheer heft of this book, but I found myself devouring it as fast as I would a 150-page novella! The writing was so beautiful, simultaneously poetic and gritty, and the worlds Vollmann paints for us - surreal underground landscapes of hookers, hobos and criminals - are at turns realistically rendered and hallucinatory. Despite its length, this is one I can see myself reading over and over.



2. Where to begin with this post-modern bible of Canaan? What a beautifully ugly opera of San Francisco's Tenderloin; paean to society's wretched refuse! Yet another majestic, narcissisticly groveling novel is unleashed upon decent society by William Vollmann - this particular volume reveling in its own destitute spirit. With lines like, "A piece of my soul I'll sell you, by all means; like other prostitutes I've been amputating meaty hunks of myself for all comers ever since the Vice Squad shut Eden down" (754) how can you go wrong? Come follow Henry Tyler as he runs from Jesus . . . and "Brady's Boys", the vigilante do-gooder thugs using his name in vane.
   
   Loaded boxcars of similes and metaphors that only Vollmann - under the influence of the Comte de Lautreamont - could concoct (neon signs shine like "stars", books open their "thighs", "octopus minded" wives grapple husbands, "I Ching ideograms" can be deciphered in the grating of Chinatown windows . . . ) specter through the shadowy night-scapes of the Royal Family; meanwhile, readers crouching like bats in hidden tree-perches of library-ensconced safety are vicariously aroused by the lightening-charged atmosphere of danger where magnificent train-wrecks of love and hate lurk behind each new chapter heading. Yes, turn the page!
   
   Admittedly long and occasionally tedious in its relentlessness, as are most of Vollmann's epic novels, at times I wondered how & why I kept reading despite the total sensory assault of being barraged by broken sentences tracing the stumblings of broken people whose addictions and predilections for hate and filth are dumped on the reader's mushroom head page after page afer page as though . . . I was one of them! Was it literary S&M from which I could not extract myself? Had I turned into a mushroom; a writhing (book) worm perhaps?
   
   Reading a book is certainly no substitute for actually observing and experiencing people, places or events yourself (which Vollmann obviously has) but The Royal Family is indeed magical in bridging this chasm. It precipitated several coffee-induced bouts of paranoid page turning through ungodly hours of the night, chased by first-thing in the morning fixes of mercifully short chapters strung out on the page like lines of coke; the come-down temporarily stayed by random, unconscious paragraph glances until . . . yet another craving strikes! The sun descends, and you somehow find yourself on a bar-stool next to Vollmann tossing down a couple-few drinks, and you converse with your new-found "family".
   
   What more can I say? Any book that does this to you - makes an event out of reading, consuming chunks of your life, twisting the world around you into strange, impending car-crash scenes you never noticed before but cannot now look away - must be locked up and secreted away at once!
   
   No, I can't really advise reading about whores, pedophiles, pimps, crack-addicts, the homeless, jobless, and other pathetic losers groveling in their own degradation, gloating under the mark of Cain, and spying from dark alleys for the black virgin, the mystical, mother and Queen of them all - last seen on the streets of San Francisco - because that would be proselytizing, and Bill wouldn't appreciate that. Since I'm not sure if it was more pleasure or pain I felt while plodding through this lotus-topped muck I'll only say that you'll need to condescend to these poisoned pages on your own in order to discover how you feel about it yourself; otherwise my encouragement would be disingenuous. The unearthed Gnostic scriptures, like The Royal Family, are filled with discarded, unacceptable luminescence like a lantern in the darkness, which had to be hidden away in Egyptian caves so that the fearful fathers of "God's official word" could control His word. The royal family runs from these vigs (vigilantes) and their Israelite hoards of righteousness that swoop upon the infidels and Canaanites to cleanse, purify, and repackage their sad sexuality for the "Feminine Circus" in where-else . . . but Vegas baby!
   
   Henry Tyler, private detective and obsessed lover of his brother's wife seeks his Gnostic Queen, submitting to the evil forces of harsh prostitutes like Domino and Chocolate and Strawberry. We follow him from one familiar landmark to another, as we take Vollmann's self-guided tour of San Francisco as it stood in 1997 (his asides on "Bail Bonds" and "Geary Street", as well as now outdated descriptions of Union Square, are just a few gemstones embedded in the pavement we walk upon). To judge Tyler or Vollmann and this book as sordid and disgusting would be a mistake, but no different from the mistake those early church fathers made at the Niocene Council when outlawing certain "heresies". Do you, I wonder, have the gumption to discover Love amidst all this Sin? It will take a certain amount of self-effacement to purify your heart, to sharpen your vision so as to navigate the thick fogs of San Francisco.
   
   After escaping the city and hoboing cross-country, riding the rods and rails from the Salton Sea to Seattle, Sacramento to Miami, what's left of Henry Tyler tirelessly continues his endless quest for the "Queen". He knows that he's afraid of Jesus. He seeks love, but because he "loves without doctrine" he wonders whether Jesus can do the same? The real question is: Can those who proclaim Jesus as their own do the same? At this point in the novel, some 754 pages (and several months in my case) you too will stink like Henry (that is, if you've had the gall and fortitude to get this far). How you come away from this "sordid niche" - survivor or victim - may not be up to you at all; no, it will be up to your QUEEN, in whose crown "The Royal Family" ever-glisten like refracting daggers of spirit-penetrating light. On your knees, open your mouth for your sacramental dose! Submit and worship at her beloved Tenderloin altar, the "Wonderbar".



3. The first fifty pages of "The Royal Family" reads like the opening of a Dashiell Hammett novel (the seedy ambience of "The Glass Key" specifically comes to mind). Henry Tyler, a down-and-out private investigator, has been hired by a shadowy patron to find the "Queen," the self-appointed sovereign who oversees and protects the street prostitutes who haunt the Tenderloin's crack hotels and dark alleys. Even the last line of the first "book" (of which there are 36) has the feel of a noir thriller. Tyler attempts to pick the lock leading into the parking garage where the Queen is rumored to be hiding: "The lock opened on the fifth bounce. He stepped into the opening light."
   
   In spite of this nifty, almost melodramatic hook, Vollmann has something else in mind instead of yet another piece of detective fiction. In addition to Hammett, influences extend to other San Francisco-area writers, first to the gritty realism of Frank Norris (as Tyler, like Vandover and McTeague before him, plunges into the underworld, taking most readers where they've never dreamed of going) and then to the desolate vitalism of John Steinbeck (when Tyler flees the Bay Area and mingles with the train-hopping hobos of the Central Valley and beyond). Along the way, the prose invites comparisons to Hubert Selby, John Rechy, and--yes--Thomas Pynchon. And I'm not even sure to which American literary tradition one might assign the book's vaguely supernatural elements.
   
   While Vollmann has a dedicated "cult" following (and, although this is my first sampling, I'm nearly ready to add my name to the registry), there are two things that will probably keep his novels from garnering the wider audience they deserve. The first is their length--and this is especially true with "The Royal Family." Between sketches of the various destitute streetwalkers and drug-addled pretenders, he throws in just about everything: from a journalistic reflection on the mechanisms of the bail bond industry to a brutal satire on the commercial fantasias of Las Vegas. This isn't simply a novel, it's a Commitment. Still, I agree with Vollmann's decision to resist his editor's insistence to cut the book--the sections I admired or enjoyed will be different from the ones another reader will prefer. Better a smorgasbord than Lean Cuisine.
   
   Yet the aspect of Vollmann's fiction that will probably keep him from ever getting an NEA grant is his willingness to explore and even to empathize with the most odious of characters. (And I don't mean to include in this caste the various prostitutes, since, if anything, the author--without glorifying the life--paints a sympathetic picture.) Among all the lowlifes to choose from here--and there are plenty--the creature that will give me nightmares for years to come is Dan Smooth, a pedophile who is exploited by the local authorities for his "professional" expertise yet harassed by the feds for their revulsion to his self-confessed illness. Smooth's fantasies are uncomfortably explicit, and--even as the reader is repelled by the experience--we can admire Vollmann's heroic willingness to enter such a mind and bring him, unexpurgated, to the page. But be warned: this book isn't for the weak of stomach--or the morally righteous.
   
   What impresses me most about "The Royal Family," however, is that Vollmann maintains an enviable consistency of timbre and vigor through 800 densely typeset pages. There's rarely a dull moment, and there's hardly a misstep. I can't say I enjoyed the excursion--although filled with wit and even occasional laughs, this book is too bleak and sordid to be "enjoyed"--but I was certainly fascinated by the depictions of "the life" and dazzled by the brilliance of the prose.



4. I met Bill Vollmann in 1990. I had read Rainbow Stories and read a few stories of his in Conjunctions. I lived in San Francisco at the time, and except for a few people and friends, nobody knew who he was. Vollmann had lived in San Francisco off and on since 1981, but I had no idea how to contact him. I found out later that he was living in New York City at this time and was writing Fathers and Crows.

   I asked a few papers in the Bay Area about doing an article on Vollmann. They weren't interested, because he wasn't part of the PC fads. In 1993 and 1994, I finally got to do some interviews with Vollmann and I saw him a lot during these years. Many of these magazines were apprehensive about doing anything about him, but I soon made them believers.

   I remember one time when I met Bill in Noe Valley. We walked down to Mission Street and all the way to the 16th Street Bart Station, talking about the hotels and the people who would later show up in The Royal Family. Today you see articles in the Bay Area newspapers and magazines much as you see articles about lesser writers such as Amy Tan and Anne Lamont, who have been over-praised and had too much attention given. I mean if some lesbian built a table, as long as it worked, as was a nice looking table, I wouldn't care who built it. The Royal Family is a novel about two brothers. Henry a detective who is looking for the Queen of the Whores. John a lawyer who is thinking about the loss of his Wife, Irene.




5. The Royal Family is Vollmann's sprawling, epic examination of life on the streets and the depths that it can drive people to. It could also be considered a study on addiction, drugs, death, love and family. The book looks at its subject matter with such clear, uncensored eyes that some readers will find it simply too offensive to read, this book is NOT for the faint of heart.

   Henry Tyler is a private eye hired to find the Queen of the Whores, an almost mythical wanderer of the streets that the more law-abiding portion of San Fransisco consider a legend, if they even know of her existence at all. Through a series of events involving a suicide and many, many trips to various prostitutes, Henry discovers the Queen and is brought into her underground world of drugs and prostitution. The 'Inner Court' of the Queen is the focus of much of the book, we see the world through the eyes of Tyler as he descends further and further into the murky depths of the black underbelly of civilised society.

   The characters are surprisingly sympathetic. 200 pages into the book, I was in love with all of the 'inner court' prostitutes, if only because they are shown with such an unflinching sense of humanity that it is impossible not too. Sure, these women sell their bodies for money - and, in plumbing the depths of prostitution, we understand just how much the word 'sell' is apt for what they do - but they still have their dreams and fears, hopes for the futures and regrets of the past. Many are hopeless, considering the physical gifts they have to offer as their only positive aspects, while others have wearily resigned themselves to a life they hate because it is all they know. Above them all stands the Queen, she is their protector, their nurturer, their mother. Often, the novel looks at this relationship in a religious light, the characters themselves referring to each other as being united through the 'Mark of Cain'.

   As events progress and Tyler falls obsessively in love with the Queen, he begins to fall further and further, eventually becoming everything his rich, successful brother John - who, interestingly, is just as unhappy with is life, although the bleak honesty with which Tyler begins to live allows him to see this, but not John - has always feared he would: homeless, diseased, poverty-stricken. I felt that the book did wallow too long in Tyler's disgrace, the last two hundred pages were somewhat of a struggle because, by that stage, I got the fact that falling into black was the only possible hope for him, but it seemed as though the author really needed to hammer this point home.

   This book is extremely graphic and offensive. It looks unflinchingly at an unhappy way of life, and inside these pages you will find rape, murder, torture, pedophilia, incest, etc. There are very few rays of sunshine to be found, and for me, when I read it, I often felt depressed and unbearably sad for a few hours afterwards. However, I think that that is the books greatest strength. I have never had to even consider that section of the populace before, but because the book forced me to, I was able to come to a better understanding of 'the life', to sympathise with the struggles a person in that situation must face. I am now able to look at them as people rather than whores, as experiences and lives rather than useless shreds of humanity who sell themselves for money. And that is a wonderful thing, in my opinion.

1 comments about The Reign of Mary Tudor.

1. I am slowly but surely making my way through this book. I did so want a book about Queen Mary, and I will continue the search. It was a complicated time and this is a complicated book. My heart went out to Queen Mary.
   
   The most frustrating part of the book is losing so much information because there are pages and pages of footnotes that were in Latin, French, and Spanish. I do understand this book was written in the 1800, but those footnotes have peeked my interest.

5 comments about A Royal Affair: George III and His Scandalous Siblings.

1. This is the first book I've read by Ms. Tillyard, but it won't be the last. She is an outstanding writer, and the tale she tells here is both novel and worthwhile. Despite having read a good deal about George III and his reign, including Christopher Hibbert's terrific biography, I nonetheless was relatively clueless about his troublesome siblings, especially the precocious and infinitely ambitious Caroline Matilda. Good story very well told.



2. 
   The book is at it's best when it develops the characters, be they the pricipals, their spouses, tutors, ambassadors, in-laws. Tillyard's description of the parental situation and upbringing of George III is an excellent prelude to his responses to his family's challenges.
   
   George III was true believer in the monarchial system. For him, it was an unchallenged law of nature: his brothers and sisters were his diplomatic pawns. Other generations of siblings had been more compliant. Other monarchs didn't face such a free press or such a powerful parliament. George, by his temperment and training, would and could never understand that the world had fundamentally changed.
   
   The story of Caroline Mathilde is both sad and exciting. Tucked away in Denmark at age 16, what was she to do? George's condescending letter and attitude provide no preparation for a normal monarchial role, let alone the one she's thrust into. It would only be human for her to seek companionship, mentorship and comfort.
   
   The princes, according to George, must also scarifice their lives for dynastic marriages. Having more say in their future, they respond in quite predictable ways. Their choices are complicated by not only their brother the King, but a society that has largely bought into the monrachial system.
   
   I held back a star, because many times details interferred with the flow
   (I think biographers who work with original material, are often disposed to include something in order to document/preserve it whether or not it is interesting to the reader or germain to the larger story) and that the US Revolution is treated separately and briefly at the end.



3. Stella Tillyard's latest effort brings to mind her magnificent earlier work Aristocrats. In A Royal Affair she moves from the nobility to the Royal Family itself, and has produced another fine, scholarly work which has more drama and interest than any novel.
   
   George III and his siblings were the children of Frederick, Prince of Wales and his wife Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. Frederick was despised by his parents King George II and Queen Caroline for no very good reason except that he was the next generation in line to the throne. Despite a lonely upbringing devoid of love and affection he appears here to have been a caring and fairly decent husband and father until his untimely death in 1751.
   
   Losing their father at an early age had an enormous impact on Fred's children. Raised in somewhat straitened and isolated circumstances by a mother who had few maternal feelings, they grew up with various quirks and personality problems which made their lives painful but fascinating to read about. George III, as the oldest son, tried to take on a paternal role even before he became King. His siblings not unnaturally rebelled at this and showed it in a variety of ways. His three brothers Edward Duke of York, Henry Duke of Cumberland, and William Duke of Gloucester caroused and whored their way around London, shocking society and the literate public and infuriating their older brother, who had become oppressively staid and inflexible in dealing with sins of the flesh. The two daughters who lived to adulthood made unhappy political marriages, especially the youngest Caroline Mathilda, who was married off at the age of 15 to the King of Denmark, a 16 year old who was already displaying signs of what today would be diagnosed as schizophrenia.
   
   Tillyard tells the stories of these royal siblings compassionately and well. As she does so she also provides some fascinating discussions of such varied subjects as Enlightenment philosophy and how it led to the development of a literate English public and a national press inclined to investigate and criticize the conduct of royalty, nobility, and politicians alike; the well-developed espionage networks in northern Europe and the Baltic; power politics between and within Britain, Denmark, Germany, and France; and, most importantly, the similarities between George III's troubles with his family and his problems with the American colonists.
   
   If after reading A Royal Affair you are eager for more about the House of Hanover, I recommend Tillyard's earlier work Aristocrats; Christopher Hibbert's George III: A Personal History; and Flora Fraser's Princesses and The Unruly Queen.



4. After reading Stella Tillyard's previous work, Aristocrats about the four Lennox sisters and their romances, I was hooked on this author's wit and style. Most of all it was her ability to look down deep into the hearts of her subjects and help the reader understand why someone would do what they did. Now Tillyard takes on another British family in A Royal Affair.
   
   This time, it's none other than the Hannoverian kings, who first took the British throne in 1714 after the death of Queen Anne. Having a tenuous descent from the Stuarts, they took to the English in a way, happy to have control of a growing empire, and a well-established military and navy, but perhaps not quite comfortable yet with a government that shared power with Parliment and where the monarch was an example and figurehead, and expected to defer as needed to the actual government. Compared to other monarchies in Europe, where the King's word was absolute, it was a very new system to adjust to. Sons who did not become the monarch would be expected to take on leadership roles in the army and navy, and daughters would become bargaining points in arranging treaties and making marriages with other royalties, leaving the homes they had known and doing as best they could in foreign lands.
   
   Unfortunately for King George II, he loathed his eldest son, Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the relationship was anything but good. Harried, and accused of trying to commit treason, Frederick turned to his wife, a German born princess for love and comfort, and their growing brood of children. There would eventually be eight children, the eldest son, George, would become George III, most famous for losing the American colonies and his madness. Two of the daughters, Augusta and Caroline Matilda, would survive childhood and marry into European dynasties. The other sons grew up without the seriousness of their elder brother, and all of the siblings would cause anguish for their brother and king, who after the deaths of their father and grandfather, viewed himself as both a brother and parent.
   
   While Tillyard touches a bit on the other siblings, it is on the youngest child, Caroline Mathilde that she focuses most of her attention. Only four months old after the early death of her father Frederick, Caroline grew up knowing that she would be married off to some prince or king, and watching her own mother's unhappiness and that of her elder sister, was no doubt a sobering influence on her own prospects. She was pretty and blonde, with the pale blue eyes and full mouth that ran her family, and figure that promised to be plump later on in life. At the age of fifteen she was married by proxy to the young king of Denmark, Christian VII. He was also a cousin, with Great Britain and Denmark having regularly suppling princesses to serve as queen consort in each others countries for a while. An etching survives of Caroline at the time, dressed in ermine and pearls, her eyes brimming and a look of misery on her face; she knew that it was unlikely that she would ever return to England, or see anyone in her family again.
   
   Unfortunately for Caroline, her husband was young and immature, and subject to fits of mania, and a strong sadomasochistic streak. Caroline managed to bear her husband a son and heir, and tried to make the best of a bad situation; she hated formality and ceremonial, and yearned for simplicity and more pastorial life. When a doctor came to consult for the king, Caroline found herself involved in intrigue, and a scandal erupted that rocked Europe.
   
   Struensee was ambitionous, much older than Caroline, and a man that Christian VII trusted. It became a sort of three-sided relationship, with Caroline acting more for the king when he was lost in his fits of violence, and turning ever more to Struensee for advice, which the good doctor was more than happy to give to her. Eventually, the relationship became much more intimate and personal, and when the scandal broke, Caroline had not only given birth to a child who was not the king's, but faced the very real possibility of exile, imprisonment or even execution.
   
   What happens next was a shocker. I was fascinated by this story of royalty gone wrong and especially one that I had never heard of before. It also shed light on George III's relationships with his own children, from the sons who gambled, were spendthrifts and married all sorts of the wrong women, and to his six daughters that he adored, but didn't want to marry. Could it be that his own observations on his sisters' and mother's fates influenced his decisions for his daughters' futures?
   
   Tillyard's writing is excellent, and the stories of these unfortunate royals makes for compelling reading. While the story does get a bit dry in the telling of it, the emotional pitch is high, and I found myself caring if anyone in these stories was going to have a happy ending. It's also a very personal tale of love and politics.
   
   Included in the text are two inserts of colour and black and white depictions of the main characters, and there is a map of Denmark, as well as two genelogical charts showing the links between the English and Danish royal families. Extensive notes, bibliography and index provide an opportunity for future research.



5. Stella Tillyard continues in her singular mode of enlightened gossip from the age of enlightenment that she has employed in previous histories. I was delighted a few years ago by her "Citizen Lord: The Life of Edward Fitzgerald, Irish Revolutionary," which gave a spirited biography of a real-life romantic figure. In "A Royal Affair," the era is a little earlier and the environs a bit more easterly. Once again, Tillyard has done her homework and cites heavily from original sources. Yes, it is gossip on a grand scale. But if it were just that, it would simply be People Magazine transposed by two-hundred and thirty-odd years. Instead, Tillyard brings the zeitgeist of London and Denmark to this readable book; moreover, she links the personal actions of the principals to the intellectual eddies brought forth by the French philosophes Rousseau, Voltaire, etc. Most interesting to me was her consideration of how budding aristocrats were educated. This linkage between grand ideas and real actions of large players on the European stage which welded both childcraft and statecraft renders this a winning book. The final chapter gives an interpretation of how George III's behavior in his family affairs may be mirrored in his actions to his rebelling colonies. I must re-read this section before I am convinced that it is not a tidy, but stretched, bow to wrap around an otherwise fine book.

5 comments about The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II.

1. The Queen is an engima, she is very hard to understand indepth, she was raised to have that stiff British upper lip. This book is hella long, but very interesting, it gives some insight into this extraordinary woman. She may be fabulously wealthy and she may be given millions of pounds each year by her country, but she earns it, she takes her duty very seriously and nobody doubts that she loves Britian and her subjects. To an American, like me, the monarchy seems so anachronistic, I mean the idea of somebody being inherantly better than somebody else simply because of their blood line, it so alien to me, but if I did have to chose a monarch, I'd chose Elizabeth Windsor....as for one of the other reviews statement that the Queen squandered her power, early in her reign, is just plain wrong, she and her advisors understood what the British public would accept, she saved the monarchy, Christ, she is the most famous monarch in the world by far, she is one of the most famous faces on the globe and Helen Mirron is about to win a academy award protraying her, she is respected the world over..That is squardering her crown?



2. Her Majesty's immediate family, her mother, also Queen Elizabeth, later the Queen Mum, her father, King George VI, and her sister Margaret, were considered the "family of families" by the British public throughout King George VI's reign, particularly during the War years of 1939-1945. When Ben Pimlott wrote this book in 1996 the year of Her Majesty's 70th birthday, the Royal family's reputation was beseiged during a time when (British, I assume, anti-monarchical) republicanism was at its height and on the rise. However, during the first decades of Queen Elizabeth II's lengthy reign, the publics' feelings on the monarchy were unquestionably favorable which you'll understand by reading the book. Millions the world over watched Her Majesty's wedding, (when she was still a Princess), and later her coronation; for many people, it was the first time they had ever watched television. So Ben Pimlott writes in his Preface that his book "is a book about the Queen in people's heads, as well as at Buckingham Palace".
   
   Ben Pimlott was "absolutely a patriot", his wife declared to the press following his death at age 58, almost a year ago, (he died on April 10, 2004, the day before Easter), after a short travail with leukemia. "He wanted, and believed, that the world and Britain could be a better place and that Goldsmiths could be a better place, and that poor people ought to have a brilliant university." Stumbling on his obituaries, I've become enamored with his life's work, (although short), and impressed with how well he was thought of; so many people were saddened by his passing. He was Warden of Goldsmiths University of London at the time. He had attended Oxford University when Bill Clinton was then a student there for one year. Professor Ken O Morgan wrote of him in an obituary that "he was one of the most important historians ever of the British left". Poor Brit, he was born on the fourth of July!
   
   Ben Pimlott wrote two other biographies before The Queen, one about Hugh Dalton, another Labour leader who was Chancellor during WWII and also son of Queen Victoria's chaplain, and Harold Wilson, who was prime minister and also of the Labour party. He also edited and made available to the public Hugh Dalton's private diaries. He was somewhat apprehensive about writing this book, anticipating criticism from his colleagues.
   
   Her Majesty invited Ben Pimlott over to Windsor Castle while he was writing this book, but interestingly, the book's contents were not discussed; he was merely invited over, I assume, for tea and a nice chat. In writing this book, he interviewed several former prime ministers, Princess Margaret, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Runcie. He used The diaries of Jock Colville, Queen Elizabeth's and Churchill's private secretary for source material. The Telegraph noted that he wrote this book to "examine constitutional issues such as the royal prerogative, her relationships with her prime ministers and her role as Head of the Commonwealth. These were matters which had tended to become obscured by the scandals and the gossip which were increasingly the preoccupation of some sections of the media." In 2002, he gave a lecture on the monarchy at St. Paul's Cathedral. This past January at Goldsmiths, the Ben Pimlott building was dedicated.
   
   I write all the above about Ben Pimlott to suggest that this is the definitive biography of Her Majesty, the queen. It is a rather lengthy one about a rather lengthy reign. Ben Pimlott's treatment of her life is extremely thorough; the many chapters' headings are years. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Her Majesty's childhood; I also knew precious little about the majority of her life. She was one of King George V's favorite grandchildren. She did not have the typical childhood friends when she was little. She had her sister Margaret, of course, but of other childhood friends, she had mostly visitors. She and her sister were babysat on occasion of the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain's, dubbed the "evil envoy" by the public, visit to her father the King by Rose Kennedy, the ambassador's wife. She was closest in age to Ted and Jean of this Kennedy clan. Other Americans became enamored with her, most notably Harry Truman. No telling how many hands she has shaken or people she has met the world over. My mother tells me that everyone has often commented that she is more beautiful in person, more beautiful than the best photos or portraits of her. A British aquaintance of mine who has met the Queen told me that "she's only 5 feet tall, you know", yet he is more than 6 feet tall, as Pimlott was, which accounts for his inaccuracy; she is actually 5'4".
   
   I had hoped to learn more about how the Sovereign's power has been diminished by, I assume, Parliament, and to understand more just how different America's structure of government is from the British system, but, again, that is subject material for other books. I had come to the conclusion in the 90's that the Queen should be taxed like everyone else, makes sense to Americans, yet King George V had always urged the Windsor family not to give in to these parliamentary demands, demands that, in the 90's had reached such a pitch and fervor, that the monarch, finally, acquiesced which Pimlott reveals. Another biographer of royalist sentiments is Kenneth Rose who wrote a book on King George V who Pimlott mentions now and then. When I read in Rose's book the chapter on Constitutional Monarchy, I was so shocked that I couldn't finish the chapter or the book, (it was actually a difficult, but substantive, chapter to read). Didn't we Americans get rid of the king to get the Constitution? How can there be a king and a constitution at the same time??? Anyway, the one thing that enamours me to the queen is that she studied constitutional issues, long before she ever ascended the throne. What a smart monarch! (I'm afraid I'm fast becoming a royalist, how unamerican of me!) Anyway, CHEERS, and GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!



3. ...lots of interesting, to-be-expected historical facts, dates, names, places, political intrigue, etc. (this is NOT a short book), but numerous anecdotes turned what could otherwise have been a dry historical narrative into a really enjoyable read---everyday life stories, palace gossip, and comical happenings of the Family Royal---examples: Queen Mary used to refer to granddaughter QE2 as "the little bambino"...and, though the death of Edward VIII was in no way a laughing matter, the description of how the Palace treated Wallis was really a scream.



4. This book goes into extreme depth of the life of the fifth longest reigning monarch in British history, Queen Elizabeth II. What she is like, what she must do as her position as the Queen, and what she stands for are a few of the questions that are answered in this biography by Ben Pimlott. Reading the book was an interesting and enjoyable experience that helps to understand the stresses of living life as a monarch.



5. With the Constitutionally-mandated reduction in the sovereign's power in the past hundred years, it's easy to see the Queen of England as a figurehead. A mascot, if you will, whose only powers are to be advised and to consent. A study of Ben Pimlott's nearly seven hundred pages will teach you why this has happened, particularly in the last nearly fifty years.

   The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II is something of an oddity in today's world--a study of the political power the monarch still holds and how that power has been wielded (or not) during the current reign. It's fascinating, and in a world filled with tawdry junk bios about the private lives of the Royal Family, this factual reference book is a gem.

   It's true the Queen commands less politically than any of her predecessors, but that's more her own fault than anyone else's. She appears to have CHOSEN, for some reason known only to her, to reign but not rule. Even her father, George VI, that most dutiful of monarchs, often made important decisions in critical situations---and no one questioned him because he was the King. His daughter has spent her reign, since 1952, playing it safe, never pushing the Constitutional line between Sovereign and Government. Because the line's never been pushed by the Queen, the Government has encroached ever more obviously onto what was once unquestionably the Monarch's territory.

   It would be difficult for the Queen to push back now; she's already given up too much. It will be nearly impossible for the next monarch (most likely Prince Charles) to recover lost ground; he will most likely be only a ceremonial king, in the manner of the Danes and Swedes. Elizabeth II has allowed herself, her decendants, and the British monarchy itself to become Constitutionally hemmed in, and it's doubtful they'll ever cut their way out.

   Pimlott explains all of this with several examples of laws passed since 1952, each limiting the sovereign's power a bit more. The Queen has, for whatever reason, not refused her signature to any of these laws though, technically, she still has that right.

   Elizabeth II: A Biography is well-written and exhaustively referenced. The many photographs included aren't the ones that always show up in biographies about the Royal Family; there are several I've never seen before. There are no anonymous sources to question; everyone is either well-known, or he/she is explained to the reader. This may be a better book for English readers than for Americans, since several of the matters discussed pertain only to the English, and Americans may be bored by the minutiae of individual British case law.

   Final decision: A tad dry, but the best examination of Elizabeth II's reign I've seen.

5 comments about Catherine Walker.

1. Some interesting material presented here, would've been nice had Diana lived to write a forward for it. Anyone buying this book with the idea of getting a lot of Diana material will see some of that. You will also be getting, as the title says, a lot of autobiographical material about Ms. Walker. No scandalous stories,many good photos, not all of them of the Princess. I personally think someone wanted to boost the sales by emphasizing the Diana link.



2. I happened upon this book one afternoon on my lunch hour. How I missed it's release I will never know. I went back that night and read it cover to cover and then bought it. It is perhaps the definitive book about the inside details about Diana's life, but also about Catherine Walker's as well. The book was clearly not meant to be another glossy "Diana" book rehashing all of the same old information. It was a guide to life with pictures and sketches. I laughed, I cried, I still read it about once a week. It is inspirational. If you are looking to read a book about Diana that has nothing new to say, do not read this book. If, however, you are a serious follower of the world of coture (and Catherine Walker) this book is a must. You will finish it and feel as if you were there during the fittings. BRAVO!



3. This is an amazing illustration and revelation of one of our world's most talented designers who also happened to be one of Princess Diana's most astounding friends and helpers in that wondrous world called royalty. I found the tale of Catherine Walker so informative yet I was still left with numerous questions as to some of the details surrounding her life before and after she became famous. The photographs are gorgeous and reveal some interesting examples of a lady who truly fits the description designer. Catherine Walker will always be one of the world's most gifted dress makers but I'm still curious as to how one would go about actually seeing her shop or, imagine this, buying one of her creations. Undoubtedly she deals with only the rich & famous while all the time remaining in the background. This is one among many of my Princess Diana books I cherish because of its detail and marvelous focus on a multitude of gowns and their intricate pieces. Catherine Walker is an amazing woman who has truly lived a life from tragedy to fairy tale status. I am an avid admirer. This book is far more than pages/pictures between covers; it's a gift of for the eyes and heart! Wonderful!



4. The night the book arrived from London, I read it cover to cover. It offered me a glimpse into the elegant world of fashion and royalty. Ms Walker provided her view of her world with a very human, caring all the while impassioned tone. This is an inspirational book to be read by afficionados of the late Princess Diana and the world of couture. A success story, not stymied by tragedy. The perfect gift for any occasion.



5. i have always been interested in princess diana. her most fabulous clothes always seemed to be designed by catherine walker, always a name without a face. now we can learn about the tragedy that turned this woman into one of the greatest designers of our time. catherine walker has carved out a place for herself in fashion history. an interesting story with beautiful photographs. a must have for all princess diana fans as well as fashion fans.

No comments about Mistress Peachum's Pleasure: The Life of Lavinia Fenton, Duchess of Bolton.

1 comments about The Man Who Had Been King: The American Exile of Napoleon's Brother Joseph.

1. This is a first-rate biography that is an excellent follow-on to Stroud's book about Napoleon's nephew, Charles-Lucien Bonaparte (The Emperor of Nature). Stroud has been a biographer of natural historians (another was of Thomas Say, the first American naturalist), but this sojourn into the American exile of Napoleon's older brother Joseph, an aristocrat and former king of Naples and Spain, proves a good fit for her.
   
   One suspects Stroud was drawn to Joseph's story in part because he made his large estate in southern New Jersey into a vast private nature reserve, in which he enriched the natural stock by introducing species from his much-missed Europe, including hares and Osage orange trees. Stroud throws in amusing
   anecdotes about encounters with wildlife: Charles-Lucien, newly arrived from Italy, once gleefully leaps off his horse to grab a beautiful black-and-white creature scurrying along the ground -- only to get sprayed by a skunk.
   
   But Stroud doesn't dwell on the natural history but rather on the rich aristocratic life of Joseph in America, who built one of the country's finest art collections at the time. Stroud makes it clear that the degree to which Joseph influenced the advancement of high European culture in this country, which today reveals itself in great private and public art and library collections, magnificent gardens, and grand estates, was significant. His library, for one, had more volumes than the Library of Congress.
   
   Joseph, a sensitive sophisticate who seems to be the polar opposite of his willful, deeply egotistical younger brother, comes across as a highly likable fellow who is at once an expatriate playboy and a partisan utterly committed to restoring a Bonaparte to the throne of France. His exile in America, which lasts 17 years, makes for a good story, and Stroud tells it with verve, intelligence, and an easygoing yet authoritative style that should appeal to both lay and scholarly readers. I particularly enjoyed her sense of humor: there's one scene of Joseph confronting Napoleon in the bathtub about the Louisiana Purchase that should not be missed.

5 comments about Chronicle of a Pharaoh: The Intimate Life of Amenhotep III.

1. Non-fiction biography with great color photographs on every single page; the book is worth it just for those. It is a well written biography of the father of Akenahaten. It is interesting to learn that he was dabbling in an interest in the "Aten" god cult prior to his son Akhenaten's obsession with it later on when he became sole ruler.
   I recently went to a museum show of objects sent from the British museum, interestingly the majority were objects found in the pages of this book! Unbelievable to see them in real life!! A great experience.



2. A very nice hard-cover book with wonderful full color plates and a wealth of information concerning his intimate life, not overly concentrating on his building projects but more on his personal life.



3. First of all, the design of the book is exquisite; it's a pleasure to leaf through this book, full of colorful high-quality illustrations. After reading it, however, I found the content a bit disappointing, most of it was re-hashing of the fairly well-known facts, although with a few interesting tidbits sprinkled throughout. This book would be great for someone with a passing interest in Ancient Egypt, it gives a good general overview of what life might have been like during the New Kingdom.



4. Chronicle of a Pharaoh is a readable in-depth look at pharaoh Amenhotep III, one of the three greatest kings of ancient Egypt. The layout is superb as it chronicles his life with a year-by-year format. Contains a generous amount of personal minutae, reinforced with pictures and plates on almost every page. Outstanding in all respects, this one is a keeper.



5. I agree with the first reviewer--it's amazing that Joann Fletcher has pieced together so much about Amenhotep and presents it in a way that conveys an actual life. The little details, like the name of his family cat, make this book tons of fun. An all-around beautiful book.