[misselle]

I just received my copy of the book yesterday afternoon;I read the acknowledgements and am quite pleased to see who her sources are:Sarah Bradford(a very balanced biography Diana);Sally Bedell Smith(Diana:In Search of Herself);Phil Craig(With Tim Clayton in Diana:Story of a Princess,book and television);Robert Lacey,Anthony Holden,Hugo Vickers,and Andrew Morton(for Diana's point of view in Diana:Her True Story) and others.
So far,I think that Tina Brown has done a really good job explaining the backgrounds of Diana and of Charles.
Diana was considered difficult,but the entire Spencer family could be described as difficult;the Spencer men were bad-tempered,eccentric and philandering,while the women were uncontrolled.Diana's Fermoy connections(her mother's side) were also difficult,producing implacably strong-willed,fiercely determined women.
Charles considered his parents as emotionally absent;Queen Elizabeth,The Queen Mother was the nurturing parent in his life.Her Majesty,The Queen,was torn away from family life to ascend the throne and was perpetually busy with the boxes,tours,meetings.And Prince Philip was himself the product of an unfortunate childhood.His father abandoned the family to live with his mistress,and his mother had a nervous breakdown and later became a nun.Philip's first real home was with Elizabeth.Philip is described as bright,but without the discipline of education "to balance the arrogance that goes with the intelligence.He quickly reaches prejudiced positions without information to do so and can't be persuaded to change his mind."

So, Diana and Charles were both needy for affection and both didn't really know how to get what they wanted.

I've just come to the part of the book where Charles leaves for naval duty and Camilla runs off to marry Andrew Parker Bowles;I'm pretty happy with Brown's writing so far.