"The Women of Windsor" by Catherine Whitney

[Lady Jennifer]

I just got back from my local Barnes & Noble & I found a new book. Its called The Women of Windsor by Catherine Whitney. According the the B&N website it came out in April of '06. The book is about The Queen Mum, The Queen, Princess Margaret & Princess Anne. Has anyone read it or heard about this book? If you have read it, what are your thoughts about it.

[norwegianne]

It sounded a bit interesting, at first. Mostly because of Princess Margaret and Princess Anne, about whom I haven't read all that many biographies...

but then I found this quote on the Barnes and Noble page about the book:

Whitney's treatment of "the women of Windsor" (the queen mother, the queen, Princess Margaret, and Princess Anne) opens, oddly enough, with a prolog not about any of them but instead criticizing the late Princess of Wales ("Drama Queen") and Prince Charles ("the queen's biggest headache"). Whitney (The Calling: A Year in the Life of an Order of Nuns) then goes over familiar ground in this superficial work-the abdication of Edward VIII, the marriage of Elizabeth and Philip, Princess Margaret's affair with Peter Townsend, the attempted kidnapping of Princess Anne, etc., unable to go into any depth owing to the amount of ground she must cover in well under 300 pages.

- from Library Journal, Liz Mellett, P.L. of Brookline, MA

I'll probably see about getting it, but the review didn't make it sound overly tempting.

[Chiyo]

I've read it, and it does skip around a bit, and I wouldn't recommend it to any Diana fanatics, but it's a quick summer read. She's very sympathetic towards both the Queen Mum and Princess Margaret.

[soCal girl]

Are there any good pictures in the book? It sounds interesting enough for a summer read. I'll have to go check it out at my local Barnes and Nobles. Thanks for telling us Jennifer! :)

[Chiyo]

Not really, no. If you have other books on the Windsors, you've seen these pictures, and they're all in black and white, too.

[tenngirl]

I read this book and I was not impressed. Unfortunately, she gets some of her dates wrong. I think Harry's birthday is one of them and there were a couple of others.

I did not like the style that it was written in. Almost like an Ingrid Seward with bated breath and all that. For example, supposedly when the Queen Mother died, Princess Anne came to be with the Queen and then later the Queen was happy she was there. And the Queen is thinking about how proud she is of her, blah, blah. It was like she was putting thoughts in her head and I thought it was ridiculous.

I think the idea of the book is good and I was looking forward to it. However, if you know much about the family, there is nothing really new. Basically, its a new opportunity to slam Diana!!!

[dbarn67]

I just read this book. I thought it was a quick summer read as described above. I wouldnt buy it though, I go my from the library. The book does jump around and has some inacuracies (sp?). For an overview of the Windsor Women for beginners its an okay read. The Diana coverage is a bit negative but she doesnt give Charles pass either. This author clearly doesnt have much positive to say either one. Camilla gets a bit of pass in the end.