Tina Brown has form detailing the trials and tribulations of the royal family thanks to her book The Diana Chronicles, which was published 25 years ago. And there was to be tension between the two, just as there was to be between the Queen’s grandsons, William and Harry. Brown is not an intellectual journalist, still less a historian, but she is a captivating storyteller,” wrote Peter Craven when he reviewed the former New Yorker editor’s take on today’s royals, “and she can be wonderful with the telling quote even though the upshot in this hugely overwritten book is far more scintillating about Diana and Charles and Camilla than it is about William and Kate, Harry and Meghan.

The Times Queen Elizabeth II: A portrait of her 70-year reign

I think Brexit reduced British soft power in much of the world, in terms of influence, but it did not affect the cultural attraction of the Queen.But according to Irving, former managing editor of Britain’s Sunday Times and inaugural editor of Conde Naste Traveller, to know the Queen is impossible. Since then, he has produced biographies of Meghan Markle, Wallis Simpson and celebrities such as Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie and the Beckhams. He negotiates the hybrid nature of Elizabeth’s life – public and private – deftly and concludes, like others, that her reign was grounded in hope, service, reassurance and selflessness. Some are more recent, including a couple from this year, while others were first published years ago. People may well open up more about her life and personality, but there are bound to be more assessments of her remarkable reign.

Elizabeth by Gyles Brandreth | Waterstones Elizabeth by Gyles Brandreth | Waterstones

It’s the kind of imagination a snob possesses, elated by a dizzy dream of high society and of his own exclusive access to it.Robert Hardman rejects the idea that Elizabeth II is a monarch “harassed by one reverse after another” and claims in this most recently published, full biography of the Queen that the “declinist narrative” overlooks one key fact: the monarch “genuinely likes being the Queen”. Most recently he has published Battle of Brothers: William, Harry and the Inside Story of a Family in Tumult. Drawn from seven decades of detailed and fascinating reporting by The Times, discover insights and memories of the extraordinary period of social change that was our nation's second Elizabethan age. The former governess of Elizabeth and her sister Margaret, who started working for their family in the 1930s well before the abdication that propelled their father, George VI, to the throne, takes the reader back to their childhood and training for public duty in a controversial 1953 book that shattered the author’s relationship with the royal family – they never spoke to her again – and cost her her home in the grounds of Kensington palace. His many books include the bestselling poetry anthology, Dancing by the Light of the Moon, and the international bestseller about spelling and punctuation, Have You Eaten Grandma?

The Times Queen Elizabeth II by James Owen and Times Books The Times Queen Elizabeth II by James Owen and Times Books

So, it’s as much a history of British political life, society and international relations as it is about the woman who “had presided over a quiet revolution in the nation’s international standing, economy, and values” and “was strong, but passive. Bedell Smith, a former contribtuing editor to Vanity Fair, told the magazine that “one thing I tried to do was to show how isolated she was in her position as Queen and wife and mother.Andrew Morton remains best known for his 1992 book about Princess Diana and the disaster of her marriage to the new king that was written with her full, albeit secretive, cooperation.

Elizabeth - Penguin Books UK Elizabeth - Penguin Books UK

But if you want to read an intimate account of the childhood of the devoted sisters, this could be the place to start. According to Britain’s Financial Times, “the real target of The Palace Papers is the Queen: Brown seeks ‘above all’ to give readers a better understanding of the monarch.It reveals, for example, the tension provoked by her decision not to take her husband’s surname (Mountbatten) and her feelings about the collapse of Charles and Diana’s relationship. She loved him deeply: “When we were married I don’t think there was such a thing as a platinum anniversary, they didn’t know we would be around that long. But one reviewer reckoned that “Smith takes on the role of royal apologist, one that somehow creeps into the prose of everyone, even American authors, who gets within several thousand miles of Buckingham Palace.