Books on the Duke and Duchess of Sussex


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I had to change my original post after seeing the Barnes and Noble website. The "book" is advertised as [...][Samantha's] memoir - her life, not Meghan's. And about how [...][Samantha] and the Markles are viewed in the media. People expecting an all out hit piece will be disappointed. I should have known Barnes and Noble would not leave itself vuneranble to a Sussex lawsuit.
 
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I admit to being curious. If I can buy the book for next-to-nothing at a remainder bookshop in due course (which might be quite soon), I might buy it. There could be something interesting in there that touches on Meghan's life in some way. I have found that useful pieces of information can be obtained from unlikely sources.
 
[.....] {Samantha Markle's} "book" comes out this week. Subjects so far:

Pap-gate: Sam admits to getting the photographer for the staged photos of Dad but the deal is to make him look good. Fail

Sam claims Meghan's first marriage ended because she cheated on him with a Suits costar according to "the grapevine" (her words). Meaningless unless Trevor corroborates but that will open him up to scrunity.

Sam went after the queen for not postponing the wedding after his alleged heart attack.
 
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After reading what is posted about what is in this book, I realize that I've already read too much. This book definitely gets a miss from me. :D
 
I suspect the new book will be the polar opposite of the Scobie paen.
 
Whatever the tone of it it's debatable that this book has much to say about Meghan's life. Sam left home and father as a teenager, spent her twenties and thirties marrying, divorcing twice and having children in another State and hasn't spoken to or seen Meghan since 2008. She's admitted that herself.

She wasn't at Meghan's first wedding or her second. Samantha may pretend that she knows a lot about her half sister but in fact has little information to impart. .
 
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Heavs said:
I suppose I'm morbidly curious if she comes up with anything that she hasn't already spewed and can substantiate. I doubt it though. She's definitely not an unbiased source to say the least. However I guess she has the right to publish or self publish as much as anyone else.

I would like a decent, well researched book that explores their good and bad points rather than Omid on one hand and this on the other and assuming that there's a grain of truth in both and mostly it's somewhere in the middle.
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I feel the same way. Because with the choices of Finding Freedom and The Diary of Princess Pushy's Sister, I suspect that that we're not going to find that "decent, well-researched book that explores their good and bad points."
 
The problem is that Meghan was a friendly and happy worker living her dream until she met Harry an he was our beloved, slightly irreverant but happy Prince who had established himself as a real asset to the firm.

None of meghan's castmates nor Harry's army mates have ever given an ugly expose. That left would be authors with very little "drama" let one "dirt" to base their fantasy tales upon.

Because they have no real information I tend to look at biographies with a somewhat jaundiced view. The tales of hate, anger, feuds, etc. are largely the product of fertile minds, long on melodrama and short on facts.

The only statement I tend to believe is true is that Harry not really happy. The reasons IMHO lie in the distance between he and his family for good or Ill. Whatever the cause, Harry is a shadow of the laughing Prince with the dancing eyes we all used to see.

I do t believe one single book has nailed it so far.
 
? There's plenty of drama? Its clear that relations between the Sussexes and the RF were never really that great, that from early on, they weren't on hte same page... and that over a year ago, the relationship split wide open.
 
I am nearly finished an audio version of Finding Freedom ( it was free) and to be honest it is so bad it is actually addictive.
Once you remove the descriptions of the surroundings, the food, oh how Omid Scobie goes on about food, then how perfect Meghan is there is absolutely no substance to it.
I am still listening though, I have now reached the Sandringham summit.
It is cringingly bad. Just my opinion of course.
 
The book was definitely poorly written. I can't imagine listening to an audio version. As much as I was looking forward to reading FF, I was disappointed. In fact, I've not yet finished reading it, because whenever I have tried to read it, I have to shake my head and groan.

The poor writing is the worst, especially in the first two chapters. It gets passable a bit after that when it's focused on details about M&H's first meeting and their growing relationship. Still, I'm on the fence about the approach Scobie decided to take of trying to place the reader in the intimate settings, and speaking as if he was inside M&H's heads at times. That didn't work for me. Durand and Scobie may as well have not even bothered to reference either of M&H's growing up years, since they gave both of their upbringings and childhood years less than short shrift in the first place.

There are a number of passages in the first two chapters that begin talking about one thing and then ramble loosely and don't connect or fully resolve what was said in the first sentence. One passage in particular makes little sense to me at all, probably because I came to the book already knowing quite a bit, so they aren't fooling me in the least with the 'head-shaking' mishmash suppositions in that and a number of other passages.

Maybe the questionable chapters were thrown together by Durand, since for the life of me, it's hard to figure what her contribution has been, aside from approaching Scobie to write the book together. It's unfortunate, because Scobie's interviews to promote FF were much better than the book itself. Also, Scobie is actually a decent writer judging by the articles he's written. He's not of Pulitzer quality of course, but not he's not as bad as the first two chapters in the book (which may have been thrown together by Durand).

It's also obvious, that legally, some information was removed or softened. As I've previously said, I also think the publisher pressured Durand and Scobie to finish the book sooner than they'd planned. Especially post-Sussexit, the publisher probably was worried about cashing in before interest waned. I don't think interest is going to wane in the Sussexes anytime soon. But the publishers were probably uncertain about that. Scobie and Durand began working on the book shortly after M&H's 2018 wedding. No one knew what was in store for M&H at that point. Scobie and Durand were probably initially given more than two years to complete the book, but that leeway changed.

This type of popular biography genre in general is not substantive since the books tend to be turned around so fast. It's hard to do proper justice to a subject's life in short on research popular biographies. Of the stuff that's been written so far, Andrew Morton's book, Meghan: A Hollywood Princess, and Sean Smith's book, Meghan Misunderstood are very well researched regarding Meghan's early years. Both writers extensively researched in L.A., and spoke to a number of former teachers, old friends and neighbors of the Raglands/ Markles. Plus, both of those books include never before seen photographs of Meghan's youth and school days, even with some of her high school acting performances included. On the other hand, the Scobie book, even though it's nicely packaged with fine, recent photos, every one of the photographs is available on the Internet. I'd seen every one of them previously. Nothing was new or revealing in terms of the photos, despite being nice photos.

I was only happy to see some information confirmed in FF. There was also for me important factual revelations. This includes a revelation few people ever speak about, which confirms Piers Morgan didn't know what he was talking about the evening he met Meghan for the first time, after their casual Twitter acquaintance. Meghan had been in touch with Piers on Twitter way back, purely due to promoting Suits on her part, and because she didn't know anything about Piers' questionable reputation in the U.K., until she was probably informed by Harry, later on. The fact that she never met with Piers again is smart and understandable.

But Piers believes that the evening he met Meghan for drinks is the same evening she had her first date with Prince Harry. That's not true. Meghan met Harry the following evening at Soho House. On the evening Meghan met Piers, he has indicated several times that he sent her off in a cab to a different venue for a dinner date. Piers didn't know who Meghan was meeting, but Piers later assumed it was Harry. It was not.

Scobie mentions that Meghan met with someone later that evening to discuss a possible professional project that was food-related. So it was a business meeting, not a romantic date, and certainly not her first date with Harry. To me it's significant information, but no one that I've noticed has ever highlighted or talked about this important clarification revealed in FF.
 
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I like the Andrew Morton book (which was pre wedding) about Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. He did research on genealogy which was quite interesting.
 
MaiaMia_53 Thank you for your summary of the book , it was that in Meghans head part I didn't like, it also IMO gave the impression that it was her speaking throughout the book. It felt that all the detail re food, who was where and when was trying to give an air of authority to the book. I also found it interesting what was omitted but that could be as you say for legal reasons. For me it left more questions than answers.
 
Well I finished it, that is 7 hours of my life I will never get back again. As a brief summary,
as a book it does not challenge your brain, also the parts omitted were the most thought provoking leaving me with more questions than answers. Also the way certain things were positioned that were obviously a dig at certain people, but at the same time kept within legal limitations. I will leave it at that.
 
Wonderful article ! It made me smile no end ! Well written.... It looks like Samantha is a very bitter person !
 
Meghan asked Samantha once to not leave the top off the toothpaste? How dare she! All this book proves is that after Samantha's teenage years these half siblings rarely met. The review is hilarious!
 
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Curbside said:
Samantha has...issues. It seems Samantha barely spent any time with Meghan over the years, so I can only believe she's made up her gripes out of whole cloth.
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Curiosity got the best of me and I read the review. It served to be the best laugh I've had all day and I needed a good laugh. If I had to write a review of this book (thank goodness I don't have to write one, I'd actually have to read the book), I can imagine my review would be limited to one sentence. "Who cares about Samantha Markle?" Just this review is rant after rant that makes Samantha look like she has a persecution complex where everybody else "does her wrong".

The book, like Samantha's attitude deserves to be ignored much like the rest of the people that actually know her do. :D
 
For those in the media who promoted this book...did they read it before they booked Samantha?!
 
Lady CC has a spot on YouTube where she talks about Meghan,a lot! She apparently described Samantha's book as 'informative'. That tells most people everything they need to know about her and about Samantha.
 
Madame Verseau said:
This is a review from Samantha's book along with excerpts from the Spectator

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/hellcat-on-the-loose-samantha-markle-rants-about-meghan

I just can't...that is all.
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Really when you think this woman can't sink any lower :ermm:

She even attacks her own mother. Seriously who portrays their own mother as a total slut, and her father as just run by his hormones? I thought we were meant to believe she loved her father and was heart broken Meghan had turned her back on him. He doesn't come off looking great either.

What 16 year old doesn't know about sex and where babies come from? She thought the 'baby would pop out of the stomach like an alien':lol:

Oh no a baby threw blueberries imagine that. What a terror :ohmy:

She comes off as a total flake who was jealous of Meghan from day one.

Honestly no surprise the woman doesnt talk to her family including her kids.

Samantha is really a few marbles short if she thinks this book will make her look anything but horrible in the media. Its definitely not the mud slinging that the publishers, promoters , and Meghan critics, hoped it would be. It seems the worst Meghan did was as an infant throw blueberries, and ask her sister to put the toothpaste lid on.
 
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Countessmeout said:
Really when you think this woman can't sink any lower :ermm:

She even attacks her own mother. Seriously who portrays their own mother as a total slut, and her father as just run by his hormones? I thought we were meant to believe she loved her father and was heart broken Meghan had turned her back on him. He doesn't come off looking great either.

What 16 year old doesn't know about sex and where babies come from? She thought the 'baby would pop out of the stomach like an alien':lol:

Oh no a baby threw blueberries imagine that. What a terror :ohmy:

She comes off as a total flake who was jealous of Meghan from day one.

Honestly no surprise the woman doesnt talk to her family including her kids.

Samantha is really a few marbles short if she thinks this book will make her look anything but horrible in the media. Its definitely not the mud slinging that the publishers, promoters , and Meghan critics, hoped it would be. It seems the worst Meghan did was as an infant throw blueberries, and ask her sister to put the toothpaste lid on.
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I wonder if she loves or even likes someone other than her.
Of course she needs money so she hopes the book will bring her money !:whistling:
 
She sounds like a narcist.
 
SLV said:
She sounds like a narcist.
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Sounds more like to me of someone writing a book about something they know absolutely nothing about. I could pen a book about Meghan with more factual information of interest than this book seems to have. For a "tell all" book, it ends up being a "tell nothing" book that people (as stated earlier) feel that it is time in the lives that they'll never get back again.
 
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It will be another negative and uber-critical biography to add to a growing pile. I bought Bowers’ bio on Prince Charles because the POW’s relationship with his sons might be discussed, which were never written about really. He certainly goes for the jugular.
 
There is a Telegraph opinion column on Tom Bower's biography of Meghan, which focus on his writing style and how some of his biography's subject has launched lawsuits against him. Bower is known to be ruthless in writing about his subjects including Prince Charles, Simon Cowell and Robert Maxwell

Unlike Oprah, Tom Bower’s unauthorised Meghan Markle biography will pull no punches
After scathing books on Prince Charles, Robert Maxwell and Simon Cowell, the bloodhound of biography has a new target: the Duchess of Sussex
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/n...-bowers-unauthorised-biography-meghan-markle/

Archive link to the full Telegraph article: https://archive.ph/SlBhd#selection-1497.0-1501.324
 
It will be interesting to see what the book says, Bower may be critical in his writing but he is usually well informed and well sourced...even if his subjects don't like it.
 
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