The Queen Morton Andrew (2022)

In this entertaining and insightful biography, award-winning writer Andrew Morton, author of Diana, Her True Story and Elizabeth & Margaret: The Intimate World of the Windsor Sisters, goes behind the scenes to explore Queen Elizabeth II and her world. As a child, Elizabeth hoped her mother would give birth to a son so that she could escape her destiny as Britains future queen and live in the country surrounded by children, dogs and horses. Instead, she pledged to dedicate her life to the service of Britain and the Commonwealth. Only twenty-five when she became queen after the premature death of her father, King George VI, she went on to become the longest-reigning and most-travelled monarch, shaking more hands and making more small talk than any other monarch in history. Her path to the throne was set by the abdication crisis of 1936, when her uncle Edward VIII wanted to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson. Divorce and its consequences went on to shape her reign as she witnessed her sister Margaret, three of her children and several grandchildren divorce, and later saw another American divorcee, Meghan Markle, marry her grandson Prince Harry. Her private life was shaped by an irascible husband, an extravagant mother and a querulous eldest son, while in the later years of her reign she mediated the conflict between her grandsons William and Harry. During the pandemic, as she celebrated her platinum jubilee after seventy years on the throne, she became a reassuring symbol of hope and optimism and a grandmother to the nation.