Product Description

Ten years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she "the people's princess," who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy? Tina Brown knew Diana personally, knows her world, understands its players, and has far-reaching insight into the royals and the Queen herself. In "The Diana Chronicles", you will meet a formidable female cast and get to know the society they inhabit...as you never have before.Diana's sexually charged mother, her subtly scheming grandmother, the stepmother she hated but eventually came to understand, and a terrifying trio of in-laws and relations: Fergie, the force of nature whose life was full of its own unacknowledged pathos; Princess Margaret, the fading glamour girl; the implacable Queen Mother and more formidable than all of them, her mother-in-law, the Queen, whose admiration Diana sought till the day she died. Add Camilla Parker-Bowles, the ultimate "other woman" into this combustible mix, and it's no wonder that Diana felt the need to break out of her royal cage into celebrity culture, where she found her own power and used it to devastating effect.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #384514 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 720 pages

Helen Mirren
"Intensely well researched and an un putdown able read...It is a
tragi-comedy, a soap opera, a social commentary a historical document and a
psychological examination, written by a superb investigative journalist."

From the Back Cover
'Intensely well researched and an un-put-down-able read, Tina Brown's extraordinary book parts the brocaded velvet , lifts the expensive net curtains and allows us an unprecedented look at the world and mind of the most famous person on the planet. It is a tragi-comedy, a soap opera, a social commentary, a historical document and a psychological examination, written by a superb investigative journalist.'
-Academy Award Winning Actress Helen Mirren

Ten years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she "the people's princess," who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy?

Tina Brown knew Diana personally, knows her worlds,understands itsplayers, and has far-reaching insight into the royals and the Queen herself.In The Diana Chronicles, you will meet a formidable female cast and get toknow thesocietythey inhabit.. as you never have before

‘The Diana Chronicles is a blockbuster: a rollicking, page-turning, fast quipping, gripping romp of a read. It is the work of a seasoned, serious journalist.’ The Times

‘Authoratative and well researched, Tina Brown's book should become standard reading material about the People's Princess’ Tatler

‘The Diana Chronicles is an enjoyable romp. There are funny moments and Brown in an astute observer of people.Tina Brown is the biographer the princess deserves.’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Tina Brown makes Diana as deeply fascinating as the great heroines of literature. She is magnificent at creating atmosphere’Daily Express

About the Author
Tina Brown was twenty-five when she became editor-in-chief of The Tatler, reviving the nearly defunct 270 year old magazine. She went on to become editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, and in 1992 she became the first female editor of The New Yorker. In 200, Tina Brown was awarded a C.B.E. She is married to Sir Harold Evans and has two children. They reside in New York.

Customer Reviews

An insightful and highly readable account of Diana's life
This is a well written and compulsively readable book, which captures the essence of Diana better than any other biography I've read - and I've read many. Most books about Diana seem fall into one of two camps: either they are overly gushing and sympathetic (eg Andrew Morton, Paul Burrell) or they are critical in the extreme (eg Lady Colin Campbell, Patrick Jephson). Tina Brown is neither. She calls Diana out on her untruths (it's highly unlikely that Diana deliberately threw herself down the stairs) but also points out where her paranoia was justified (yes, the Squidgeygate tapes were deliberately released).

There's not a lot of new material here (what was there left to find out?), but it's a very comprehensive look at Diana's life that pulls together all the various things that are known about her in such a way that you feel that you are viewing the truest and most complete picture yet. It also gave me a strong sense of what life behind the Palace walls is actually like and why Diana felt so isolated and uncomfortable there.

Tina Brown is particularly good at getting inside Charles and Diana's heads: explaining Charles's misgivings at the time of the engagement or Diana's thoughts when she agreed to the divorce. At one point she refers to Diana being a tactician rather than a strategist (always going for the short term win rather than thinking of the long game), which I thought was a very astute observation. She discusses the Charles/Diana/Camilla triangle at great length, and ultimately concludes that quite possibly the marriage could have worked had Camilla not been ever-present (Camilla doesn't come across very well at all).

This is a long book which starts a little slowly, but from the time that Diana meets Charles it races along. It's amusing, it's insightful and it leaves you wistful for what could have been.

An Assemblage of Detail
The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown do not add much to our knowledge of the life and death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Nonetheless, Tina Brown's access to people and the 2007 publication date which allowed her to review all that was known before the inquest of that year and the next, does provide us with the most extensive compilation of quotations yet assembled in one place.

While venturing to comment frequently on Diana's psychological state, Brown refers to but does not take into account her mother's alcoholism, the double-dealing of her sisters especially Jane Fellowes or similar bonding difficulties in Diana's life. Brown does, however, clearly emphasize the princess's astounding isolation in her early palace years.

Brown also seems a bit bemused by the continual reports, from those who were present, of the healing touch the Princess seemed to have had, and of the gift of light Diana so willingly brought to so many. Brown does agree that Princess Diana always `rose to the occasion' and never disappointed those waiting for her, regardless of her personal state, even from the earliest days of her marriage.

One of Brown's main contributions is the clear statement that El Fayed's ten-year shouting campaign about a murder conspiracy has almost obscured the fact that it was his son, his hotel and his staff that in the end were responsible for the death of the Princess of Wales.

The other point Brown makes is that, on the evidence, Diana and Charles liked each other, cared for one another and that without Camilla might have made a go of their reationship. Thus Brown hints at but again does not develop the story of Camilla's tenacity. Perhaps especially because of Charles' inability to resist Camilla, it seems impossible for Brown to paint a picture of Charles as someone fit to be king and defender of (the) faith, at least according to the standards set by his mother and grandfather. Brown reluctantly, and almost in spite of herself, reveals Charles' failure to be courteous to the young woman he was escorting as she struggled to cope with their early engagements.

Roy Strong, the fastidious director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, met the couple at the unveiling of an exhibition at his museum and told Brown « I don't think he - Charles - looked after her enough. » Patsy and David Puttnam, a film producer, were present at a dinner in 1984 at the London home of Lord Waldegrave and his wife Caroline. While Diana was being `watched' and reported on to the palace, Brown tells us that « In fact, it was Charles' bad behaviour, not Diana's, that made an impression on the Puttnams that night. While Diana was solicitous and affectionate towards the Prince, he was openly dismissive towards her. `He behaved as if she were an irritant,' said Patsy. `He would have liked her to be invisible and she knew it.' »

Brown is, overall, another Charles apologist, but then Diana is dead, Charles is alive and likely will be king and Brown is still a working girl in need of the next good job. Still, on two key issues of interest - was it Diana or Camilla who rendez-vous'd with Charles in the train before the marriage, and is it Charles or Hewitt who fathered Prince Harry - Brown only repeats already aired information and gossip, without even trying to put the pieces together in ways that might suggest new readings.

In places the book seems poorly edited or awkwardly written, trying to `bridge the pond' in a way that sometimes leaves it stranded in the mid-Atlantic. Nevertheless, if you are a gossip hound who loves to know what key players in any drama `really said' this book will probably be of interest. If you have not read the « Diana literature » as it has emerged, this book offers a very good summary overview.

is it possible to write a brilliant book about diana?
this is not just a good book but a great and intelligent read.i did not think it was possible or necessary to write another diana book but this one goes into social and political discussions and appears not to be full of specialation. i found the book gripping, rather like a historical novel which at some point it might well be.but in the hands of such and intelligetn journalist writer its great.. Ms Brown deals with the very disturbed childhood,the role of women in the upper classes, and maes the Diana story comassionate and believable.