Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret

By: Craig Brown

Narrated by: Eleanor Bron

A witty and profound audiobook portrait of the most talked-about English royal.

She made John Lennon blush and Marlon Brando tongue-tied. She iced out Princess Diana and humiliated Elizabeth Taylor. Andy Warhol photographed her. Jack Nicholson offered her cocaine. Gore Vidal revered her. Francis Bacon heckled her. Peter Sellers was madly in love with her. For Pablo Picasso, she was the object of sexual fantasy.

Princess Margaret aroused passion and indignation in equal measures. To her friends, she was witty and regal. To her enemies, she was rude and demanding. In her 1950s heyday, she was seen as one of the most glamorous and desirable women in the world. By the time of her death in 2002, she had come to personify disappointment. One friend said he had never known an unhappier woman. The tale of Princess Margaret is Cinderella in reverse: hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled.

Such an enigmatic and divisive figure demands a reckoning that is far from the usual fare. Combining interviews, parodies, dreams, parallel lives, diaries, announcements, lists, catalogues, and essays, Craig Brown’s Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret is a kaleidoscopic experiment in biography and a witty meditation on fame and art, snobbery and deference, bohemia and high society.

©2017 Craig Brown (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Glimpses is accurate

After watching "The Crown" on Netflix, I looked for a book on Audible about Princess Margaret. I found her story one of the most interesting and wanted to know everything possible about the tragic, glamorous and ultimately wasted life. At the time, I could not find any books about her, but when this showed up on Audible I snapped it up.

This book is a little confusing, because the author at times goes into a strange side story of "what if this happened, or that happened" (that did not happen)... for that reason I had to do some fact checking as I listened. I couldn't always keep straight the imagination of the author and the actual history. I found myself thinking more than once, "that didn't happen... did it?? I would have known!!" However, this is like "The Crown," and so it didn't take away too much from the story.

I enjoyed the most the re-telling of apocryphal stories from different sources, juxtaposed to show that her reputation could be many different things depending on the person telling the story. I liked that the story talked about all stages of her life, not just the more famous moments. Overall, I enjoyed listening to this book a lot.

Fascinating

A wonderful way of capturing a woman both infuriating and sympathetic. I wish it was longer!

Like an Automobile Accident, One can not help but Look

This audiobook is quite captivating. It’s like a clip show, with just the height-lights, or more often, low points, strung together.

This is for the typical person with no real knowledge of Princess Margaret beyond watching The Crown.
Many of the exerts of her life will be vaguely familiar to someone who has thumbed through a biography or two.

Eleanor Bron’s various “character” voices are well done, however her “narrating” voice becomes rather monotonous and at times harsh. Perhaps this added atmosphere to the work filled with so many awkward accounts of an unpleasant person, but I found that while I was still interested in the story, I needed an occasional break from the grating, sometimes lifeless voice.

Perhaps I’m being overly critical, but I think that would please the Princess, don’t you?

Delightful!

Craig Brown's compilation of vignettes of HRH The Princess Margaet's life create a multi-faceted, very humorous, and poignant biography juxtaposes the anachronism of the monarch against the cultural and political changes of the twentieth century. Elanor Bron's performance is brilliant and award-worthy. If you are a royalist, listen to this book!

Very Interesting Story

Interesting story and insights into the life of a royal with the problems and issues everyone experiences.
Proves that no privilege in life can stem the tide from suffering in love and loss.