The Windsor Diaries

December 1, 2020

Famous for breaking the Watergate story with Bob Woodward, Bernstein backtracks to his early-1960s experiences as a teenage reporter at the Washington Star in Chasing History. Structured around Gwendolyn Brooks's "We Real Cool," Punch Me Up to the Gods recounts award-winning poet/screenwriter Broom's upbringing in Ohio as a Black boy crushing on other boys, falling into wild sex and drug use, and finally finding his way. Laden with Academy Award, BAFTA, Golden Globe, SAG, and Grammy honors, Foxx pivots here to talk about raising two very different daughters in Act Like You Got Some Sense (400,000-copy first printing; originally scheduled for October 2020). In The Windsor Diaries, published posthumously, Howard records staying with her grandfather at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park during World War II and befriending princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. Emmy Award winner Leslie Jordan, a viral sensation, pulls out the Southern charm to tell funny stories about life and celebrity in How Y'all Doing? (100,000-copy first printing). Having started the YouTube channel Dad, How Do I? to hand out the fatherly advice and how-to tips he wishes his dad had been around to give him, Kenney here reiterates that advice while surveying his childhood and how the channel went viral (75,000-copy first printing). In Sparring with Smokin' Joe, Lewis, director of journalism at York College, CUNY, recalls the months he spent in 1981 in the gym and on the road with boxing great Joe Frazier. Brat Packer McCarthy relates a life that encompasses acting, directing, and working as an award-winning editor-at-large at National Geographic Traveler. In Sunshine Girl, Margulies shows how she created order amid the chaos of a difficult childhood to become an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award-winning actress. In Sinatra and Me, Oppedisano, a longtime confidant and key member of the singer's management team, reflects on Sinatra's life, loves, and commitment to his craft (100,000-copy first printing). Finally, in The Wreckage of My Presence, actress/podcaster Wilson offers funny but heartfelt essays ranging from the joys of eating in bed to her obsessive need to be liked (100,000-copy first printing)

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2021
Another facet of the British royal family emerges via the diary entries of a young, devoted Windsor Park neighbor. At the outset of World War II, Howard (1923-2001) was sent to live with her paternal grandfather and maiden aunt at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Park, a few miles from the castle. Her new home was the seat of truly aristocratic stock. As Isabella Naylor-Leyland, who is married to Howard's nephew, writes in the foreword, "Old Lord Fitzalan, a widower...was a distinguished elder statesman and leading Roman Catholic layman. Cumberland Lodge had been loaned to him for his lifetime as a grace-and-favour house by King George V in 1924." At age 16, Alathea now lived just down the road from her childhood acquaintances Elizabeth and Margaret, the two Windsor princesses, who had also been moved from London for safety during the Blitz. Their friendship grew over the years as the girls skated together, enjoyed tea with the king and queen, took dancing and drawing lessons, practiced for Christmas pantomimes, and, eventually, attended dances and balls. The author diligently chronicles the stultifying round of royal visits and duties and her grinding work as a nurse in training, none of which makes for interesting reading. But she does provide some intriguing insights into the characters of the princesses as well as her own: She was an old-fashioned girl whose mother was deeply critical and emotionally remote, leading to bouts of depression. Though Alathea was uncomfortable in her present life and obsessed with the 18th century and the world of Marie Antoinette, the Windsors offered the charm and warmth of a loving family she never experienced. Eventually, she realized that Elizabeth, the duty-bound heir to the throne, would never love or need her the way she needed the princess, and she was crushed when she was not chosen to be her lady-in-waiting. A litany of dull, dreary royal goings-on peppered with the diarist's sharp, dark observations.

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May 1, 2021

Alathea Fitzalan Howard (1923-2001) was the elder daughter of the last Viscount Fitzalan of Derwent and of Joyce Langdale, who later became Countess Fitzwilliam. At the start of the Second World War, Howard was sent to live with her grandfather and aunt at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Park, next door to Windsor Castle. The young princesses Elizabeth and Margaret lived at Windsor and were friends with Howard. Howard kept diaries over the years and bequeathed these to her niece Isabella Naylor-Leyland Milton, who has now published Howard's account of the war years, 1940-45. Howard writes about her family, her friendship with the princesses, and socializing with George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The diaries finish in 1945, with celebrations of the war's end. An afterword traces Howard's life after the events of the diaries, including attending the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, and Elizabeth's coronation. Until her death in 2001, Howard maintained her friendship with the queen, and the two would meet for social events. Howard eventually married the Hon. Edward Ward, a son of William Ward, Earl of Dudley. VERDICT An insider account that is essential for followers of the royal family.--Lucy Heckman, St. John's Univ. Lib., Queens Village, NY

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.