Q: A Voyage Around the Queen

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
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Virginia Woolf compared her to a caterpillar; Anne Frank kept pictures of her on the wall of the Secret Annex; Jimi Hendrix played her tune; Haile Selassie gave her a gold tiara; Dirk Bogarde watched Death in Venice with her; Andy Warhol envied her fame; Donald Trump offended her; E. M. Forster confessed he would have married her, if only she had been a boy.

Queen Elizabeth II was famous for longer than anyone who has ever lived. When people spoke of her, they spoke of themselves; when they dreamed of her, they dreamed of themselves. She mirrored their hopes and anxieties. To the optimist, she seemed an optimist; to the pessimist, a pessimist; to the awestruck, charismatic; and to the cynical, humdrum. Though by nature reserved and unassuming, her presence in a room could make presidents, tycoons, and rock stars turn back into the nervous children they once were. For close to a century, she inhabited the psyche of the world.

Combining biography, essay, cultural history, dream diary, travelog, and satire, Craig Brown—the bestselling and award-winning author of Ninety-Nine Glimpses of Princess Margaret and Hello Goodbye Hello—presents a kaleidoscopic portrait of this most public yet most private of sovereigns in Q: A Voyage Around the Queen.