Q - by Craig Brown

About the Book

"With equal measures of wit and wisdom, the author of 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret draws a deeply original, hilarious, and telling portrait of the Queen herself"--

Book Synopsis

With equal measures of wit and wisdom, the author of 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret draws a deeply original, hilarious, and telling portrait of the Queen herself.

She was the most famous person on earth; she first appeared on the cover of Time magazine at the age of three. When she died, few people were old enough to recall a time when she was not alive.

Her likeness has been reproduced--in photographs, on stamps, on the notes and coins of thirty different currencies--more than any since Jesus. It is probable that, over the course of her ninety-six years, she was introduced to a greater number of different people than anyone else who has ever lived--likely well over half a million. Yet this most closely observed of all women rarely left any real impression on those she encountered beyond vague notions of her "radiance" and "sense of duty." A high proportion of those she met can remember what they said to her, but not a word of what she said to them.

Up until now, the curious tactic employed by biographers of the Queen has been to ignore what is interesting and to concentrate on what is not. Craig Brown, the author of 150 Glimpses of the Beatles and Hello Goodbye Hello, rejects this formula, bringing his kaleidoscopic approach to the most famous--and most guarded-- woman on earth, examining the Queen through a succession of interlocking prisms. With Q, this fantastically funny, marvelously insightful journalist gives us an unforgettable portrait of the omnipresent, elusive Queen Elizabeth II.

Review Quotes

"Q is a portrait of Queen Elizabeth unlike any other . . . absorbing, edifying and frequently laugh-out-loud funny." --Clare McHugh, The Washington Post

"An engrossing, comprehensive and gloriously bizarre portrait of the late monarch." --John Banville, The Guardian

"An entertaining and revealing digest...fascinating... Craig Brown has captured something essential about Britain's curious relationship with royalty." --Miranda France, TLS

About the Author

Craig Brown is the author of 150 Glimpses of the Beatles, which was awarded the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, and 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret, the winner of the James Tait Black Prize for Biography and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His first article appeared in the New Statesman in 1978. Since then, he has written for many newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Spectator. He has written the parodic celebrity diary for Private Eye for more than thirty years. He lives in Suffolk and Bloomsbury with his wife, Frances Welch; they have two children and a grandchild.