Once upon a time, watching, listening, and reading everything about the royals was considered a bit…lowbrow. Why would anyone be so obsessed with this uptight family and the dazzling and seemingly dim blonde at the center of an ever-escalating tabloid battle? Maybe you had to have been there: In 1981, adoring Diana was like being swept away by Beatlemania in ’64. We loved her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when Diana revealed she was a media genius living in marital misery, we loathed the family that made her feel as remote as one of their broody castles.
Fast-forward 20 years, the rise of a new Fab Four (Wills, Kate, Harry, and Meghan) and the arrival of Netflix’s The Crown have led to a shift. Screenwriter Peter Morgan’s truly revolutionary decision to frame the queen as the world’s most-stressed-out working woman made us more empathetic toward her. Her lack of maternity was just part of her screwed up DNA. But now, in Season 4 of The Crown, Morgan has gone and upended the narrative—again. The ultimate victim of the Windsors’ channel-sized chilliness is back, sporting her pink sheep sweater and eager to dance with somebody. In one scene, she even hugs a queen who doesn’t hug her back! Watching this season, especially in the shadow of Meghan and Harry’s “So long, Sussex,” feels like a bad ’80s flashback. We’re mad at them all over again!
But this doesn’t feel like the whole truth, and that’s why it’s time to study up. Yes, they
treated her deplorably. We know so much more about the eating disorders that plagued Diana’s adult life. But there were laughs, friends, causes that changed the conversation, and of course, Wills and Harry. To truly get to know Diana, the queen (who still commands respect as the longest-serving world leader), and the true twists and turns of this real-life reality show, check out these audio titles.
For a girlfriend’s guide to not-so-shy Di, there’s The Diana Chronicles. At Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Tina Brown commissioned many gossipy and decidedly pro-Diana stories that chipped away at the façade of Buckingham Palace (based on off-the-record lunches she had with the press-friendly princess).
The story of the woman who changed the monarchy as much as Elizabeth, Diana: I’m Going to Be Me is a collection of quotes, compiled by royal reporter Phil Dampier, that brings the voice of Diana back to life in her own words.
For an empathetic portrait of a woman who married too young, was betrayed too often, and who paid the ultimate price, there’s Andrew Morton’s Diana: Her True Story - In Her Own Words, which Diana was intimately involved in reporting. He served as a consultant to this season’s Crown, which explains how bashful Charles becomes a villainous, calculating brute.
One simply can’t become a Windsor without studying up on "The Firm,” the Duke of Edinburgh’s nickname for the business of “being royal.” To gain the most insight on the woman at the center of it all, take up the skilled biographer Sally Bedell Smith’s Elizabeth the Queen, which paints a riveting portrait of a woman who, time and again, put country first—even ahead of her own family. PS: It’s the seemingly imperious Philip, along with the irrepressible Margaret, and their shared loyalty to her that enriches the queen’s story.
Follow up with Elizabeth II: Life of a Monarch, a rather proper-sounding podcast that uses archival recordings from the BBC and feels like an audio version of The Crown.
In this official companion to the actual Netflix series, The Crown, we get behind-the-scenes insights into the series, and context for the glimpse of post-World War II Britain. Paired with another epic miniseries, Call the Midwife, and you get a sense of that era, a world in transition, and how it’s always the women who change, evolve, and rise despite it all.
If you listen at 2.5 speed, you get a fast overview of Once Upon a Time, which details the not-always-charmed life of American actress Grace Kelly after becoming Her Serene Highness of Monaco. Which should remind us, once and for all, that the job of princess just isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
Andrew Morton’s most recent book, Meghan: A Hollywood Princess, also takes a good look at Harry, his troubled 20s, his sudden eagerness to settle down, and how Meghan Markle and her “roast chicken” won the day.
The subhead of Finding Freedom could just be, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Harry and Meghan’s exit strategy is more fully explained along with the countless slights, toxic situations and not so micro aggressions that led to the Fab Four’s breakup.
As this global annus horribilis comes to an end, might it be best to just lose oneself in faux royal fairytales such as The Royal We, Red, White & Royal Blue, and Royal Holiday? In these worlds, gay princes, kind kings, and quirky queens experience soufflés of setbacks, but all eventually works itself out. Things do end happily ever after. And that’s the fairytale we still long to believe.
