Tina BrownReviews

: Inside the House of Windsor--the Truth and the Turmoil

Exhaustive and exhausting. I know more dishy gossip about every member of this family than I could ever possibly need.

I am always fascinated by our Royal Family and love reading about them. In this book there is so much information……is it 100%% correct? Who knows, but it’s gossipy and also interesting to read about their foibles. The book is well written and well researched.

As editor and reviver of Vanity Fair Magazine, Tina Brown got to meet gazillions of celebrities that most of us only dream of meeting let alone sharing dinner with. So reading her Diaries is a potent exercise in ENVY. Her diaries also introduce us to a bunch of celebrities we never heard of, and that makes her Diaries even more desirable.

That she sat through hundreds of these dinner without touching a drop of alcohol is incredible. By her own admission, Brown is allergic to alcohol. As one commentator put it, these diary entries couldn’t have been so detailed if alcohol was a mainstay of her diet.

Her excitement at making the “big bucks” and living in the New York-Long Island bubble is contagious. Boy, if I were in her position I would have jumped right in. Clearly, her talent has taken her far.

And that talent extended to some very funny and moving writing.

As a mother she suffered from not knowing what was keeping her son from adapting to school and normal home life. In those days, Asperger’s Syndrome was barely understood.

Brilliantly gossipy, full of the famous and infamous, nightly parties and summers on Long Island. It could only have been the 80s. Totally Tina, too, and a sharp look into how her mind works and her editorial sense.

I started skimming after the first chapter or so. There wasn't much new here and/or maybe I realized I wasn't as interested as I thought I was to spend that much time carefully reading 500 pages about life in "the Firm".

Tina Brown's writing is so engaging that I just tore through a 500 page book about a topic that I don't really care about.

Excellent book about the trials and tribulations - and some bright spots - of the British royal family over the last 20 years. It ends prior to the Queen's passing. Tina Brown's writing is intelligent and entertaining.

This is a great book from which to get information about the Royals and some of their current issues. The author tries to provide a somewhat unbiased representation, however even with that, the Sussexs still come out looking like absolute jerks - there's just no way to paint them in a positive light. The story of Charles and Diana is given a fair review - there was fault on both sides. The Queen would not allow Charles to marry Camilla because she wasn't as "pure" as the Queen wanted - enter Diana with her aristocratic background. If only the Queen forbade Harry to marry TW, there would not be such turmoil that we're seeing now. The book conjectures that maybe she was trying to make up for the mistake she made with Charles - but then we wouldn't have William - the Royal who is truly "king material." The book is written in a conversational style and keeps one's attention throughout. Recommend.

Tina Brown’s extensive research is evident. She gives a gossipy insight into the cast, & is amusingly clear-sighted, neither sycophantic or having an ax to grind. Fantastic, punchy writing.

Tina Brown is an excellent writer and I appreciate her in depth research which gives great credibility to her work. I have a curiosity about the royal family as my dad was from Great Britain. These folks are just people like us who live in the limelight. I'm glad it is their job and not mine. I'm not always sure what the truth is from the media craziness with these folks, but at least Tina Brown has a credible reputation for attempting to present what she uncovers.

This is a very hard one to rate. I found it very interesting, but very challenging to read. A family with so many troubles and so much privledge and so out of touch. Yet I can see the frustration they must feel. I started the Epilogue the day the Queen died. The book and the timing really challenged my thoughts on the topic of the monarchy.

They're all here: Elizabeth, Philip, Charles, Andrew, Diana, Camilla, Harry, William, Meghan, etc. etc.
Lots of detail, and I think lots of research. Lots of gossip and juicy details. A bit hard on some of the characters. But then I have to ask myself, why should I care about some of these people who have done nothing to "earn" their positions except be born or marry into them? Why does the world still have monarchies, anyway?½

Tina Brown puts on her old gossipy hat from her days as editor of Tatler magazine as well as her knowledge of the British upper c lasses to bring us what is th4e most honest look at the British Royal Family in a long time.
The Windsors have been a dysfunctional family going back to Queen Victoria, but up until the late twentieth century they manages to keep their private lives private. However, with the rise of aggressively intrusive tabloid journalism, social media, and celebrity culture. All pretense of privacy has been abandoned.
Brown, who wrote an excellent book on Princess Diana in 2007, shows in this book that she also has a good understanding of Diana’s children and their spouses and presents them in an honest and even-handed way. After reading this book, I would say that I have my doubts of this institution surviving after the current monarch goes to her great reward. And maybe that’s a very good thing.

Tina Brown is a journalist and former editor with ties to the Royal Family. In 2007 she wrote a bestselling book about Princess Diana who was a personal friend. Her new book is about the current people who are part of the royal family. I thought that the first half of the book was all old gossip that had been regurgitated for her new book. It was about Diana and Charles and Camilla, issues with William and Harry growing up and the issues they faced after their mother's death. However, it really gets interesting when she writes about Prince Andrew and his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the behind the scenes issues when American actress Megan Markle starts dating and marries Harry plus their decision to move to the United States.

Several reviewers have stated that this book is biased - either towards William and Kate or towards Harry and Megan. I didn't think it was biased at all. She had positive and negative things to say about all of the Fab 4 No one comes out of this book without some dirt flung at them. Overall this is an interesting and well written look at the Royal family and all of its scandals, love affairs and betrayals.

I was astounded at some of the details of Princess Diana's life I learned through this book. Unfortunately, I also had to slog through a bit of the reporters and papperazzi detail to keep interested. I read this for a bookclub or I think I would have put it aside.

I liked this
It's gossip and largely unsubstantiated or already reported gossip.
This books takes a very jaded view of Princess Di. She doesn't seem to dislike her so much as see her in a less 'royal' light.
I like the authors tone with the royals

Audiobook read by Rosalyn Landor

Published in 2007 and written by one of her close friends, this (very long) biography dives into the details of Princess Diana's life, from her ancestors to her funeral.

I decided to read this now (well.... in January) because of the big to-do about Prince Harry and Meghan (kind of) leaving the royal family. (Remember back in January when things like that counted as news??) I found myself wishing I knew more truth about Princess Diana. I remember her death when I was 9 but I don't really know much about her life before that. I had a vague sense that she was treated pretty badly by the royal family and surprise! I was right. The book provides a lot of context for what Diana's early life was like that would otherwise be completely incomprehensible to me. For example, it was very cool at the time for rich young people to have very trivial, low-paying jobs (like cleaning houses or walking dogs) because the fact that you could work hard and get paid almost nothing for it showed how much money your family had. While she was first dating Charles, Diana was a nanny for an American family living in England and they had zero idea who she was. Ah, life before 24/7 news media.

One must obviously be very careful when selecting a book to read about such a big (and profitable) pop culture figure/event. The 90s were a golden age of cheap fan publications and "unauthorized biographies". The things I think make this a worthwhile pick are:
Firstly - It was published 10 years after Diana's death. It's obvious that Brown was not trying to capitalize on a recent event, and also a decade of hindsight really changed what the public knew about her life and death, and the way we view it.
Secondly - Tina Brown was Diana's close friend and had a view of her private life that many others don't, but she is also an award-winning journalist and editor of Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and creator of The Daily Beast. She's a highly-credentialed, very good writer.

In conclusion, I highly recommend reading books about events published 10 or more years after the fact, and if you're going to read a book about Princess Diana I recommend this one. And Rosalyn Landor is a good narrator.

My first read this March has been The Vanity Fair Diaries by prolific editor Tina Brown, former editor of Vanity Fair and then The New Yorker. Seeing as these are my two favorite magazines, I was so excited to read.
Brown kept regular diaries from 1983–1992. During this time, she moved from the Tatler in London to a hustling and bustling New York City, determined to revive Vanity Fair.
If you follow the entertainment industry as closely as I do, you know how that turned out. In this book, you can see how the decadence of anniversary parties, birthday bashes and seemingly daily formal dinners eventually turned into the post-Oscars bash we all love.
Brown more than doubled Vanity Fair’s circulation and took it from deep in the red to profitable in less than a decade. The parts of this book that stand out are truly editorial — how stories and famed covers were landed, Annie Leibovitz’s rise to Hollywood’s most prolific photographer, the behind the scenes of an extraordinary publishing company.
Who knew how soon issues had to be prepared to go to print before the digital age? (Almost two months!)
Reading Brown’s diaries from 30–40 years ago, I was struck by how many things were still topical in today’s society. Without spoilers, here are 5 that stood out:
“Particle People”
Towards the end of the book, Brown discusses the switch that companies need to make in the 90s. Separating themselves from the 80s decade, Brown wanted a cover that rocketed them into the 90s and defined what the new decade would look like. That turned into the infamous, nude, pregnant Demi Moore cover.

But that’s not all the 90s were about. Years before the Y2K fear, and years before even I was born, concerns about how new technology would impact humanity were rampant. In a Vanity Fair essay, one of Brown’s top writers wrote about the concern of what he called “Particle People.”
Knowing how the digital age turned out, I find the following quote quite entertaining:
“…Particle People, which we’re all becoming — splintered apart by the inequity of wealth, by the seventies counterculture before it, the youth boom, the changing demographics, isolated by our camcorders and fax machines and home computer modems on the desk.” [Page 363]
That quote sounds like the simple times to me! I’m sure my parents would love to go back to having whatever “home computer modems” are strictly limited to being on a desk.
Donald Trump has always been Donald Trump.
Surprising absolutely no one, the above statement is true. Having both been in the same circles throughout the 80s, Brown had many run-ins with Trump, making it clear that she is just as appalled by his presidency as many of us.
In fact, given the timeline, the diaries cover his relationships with Ivana and Marla Maples, and how the New York scene perceived both.
I do have to say that continuous mentions of Trump were one of the more disappointing parts of the books. Considering the diaries were published in 2017, shortly after Trump’s election, one does have to wonder if entries containing his name were brought up more than they were originally going to be mentioned. I truly don’t know if passages were cut or if this is a collection of every entry Brown wrote, but Trump’s influence in NYC in the 80s is not underscored.
While I laughed — mostly in horror — at many of the Trump stories, I particularly liked this one:
“Marie [Brenner] has been able to establish such a pattern of lying and loudmouthing in Trump that it’s incredible he still prospers and gets banks to loan him money. Great quote where his brother says Donald was the kid who threw cake at the birthday party… The revelation that he has a collection of Hitler’s speeches at the office is going to make a lot of news.”
That was written in July of 1990. 30 years later… is anyone surprised?
Maternity Leave
Brown was only in her early 20s when she revived Tatler in London, so it’s not surprising that as a married woman, she was hoping to have children during her years at Vanity Fair, when she was mid-20s to mid-30s.
But how would an up and coming magazine in the midst of a full makeover and revival manage with a female, pregnant editor?
Brown wound up having two children during her editorship, but it’s the way her boss, Si Newhouse, reacts to her first pregnancy that really blew me away. He teared up!
Everyone was so thrilled for her. And while she took a short maternity leave and still continued to work as she could, the entire office’s joy at her pregnancy was something I wished were automatic some 30 odd years later!
Anna Wintour
The Vanity Fair Diaries also cover Anna Wintour’s rise to fame within the magazine industry. Second in charge at Vogue, then moving to London, then becoming editor of Home and Garden (HG) before taking the helm at Vogue, Wintour’s character is almost more fully developed in these diaries than we know her in modern day!
There is talk in the diaries about how the publishing world often pitted the two against each other, but they were actually great friends. It’s admirable to see how two women who were reviving two competitive magazines under the same masthead, Conde Nast, were friends and not foes.
Although Wintour has clearly become more of a prolific character than Brown, it’s fun to see the bond they shared. Brown was an ardent supporter of Wintour, and one of my favorite anecdotes of the two of them is when they co-hosted a dinner, found out they had hair appointments prior to the dinner at the same salon, and spent the appointments putting the finishing touches on the evening.
And, even back then, the bob was still iconic!
The AIDs crisis, live
Perhaps the saddest aspect of the book is the prevalence of the AIDs crisis. In many ways, it played out live throughout the diaries.
Especially starting in the mid-80s, it seemed that every few months there was another peer of Brown’s who passed away due to the disease. Her concern over many of her friends and colleagues was apparent, as was her heartbreak at many of these losses.
When planning the famous Vanity Fair fifth-anniversary bash, Brown became close with both her fashion designer for the evening, and the party planner. A few years later, both passed away from the disease. It was not unexpected as a reader, but nonetheless devastating.
It’s hard to become attached to characters in a book as long as this, and then to have them die — knowing they were real people is even worse than a novel.
Another aspect to this is how many gay men were in the publishing industry, and how it was an open secret. They were still loved, adored even, by their colleagues. Yet many of their funerals and obituaries never mentioned the disease. It was always a side effect of AIDs that killed them, never the disease itself.
It made me even more grateful for the modern day acceptance of homosexuality, but cognizant of the fact that we have a long way to go.
Whether interested in Hollywood, publishing, 1980s life, or badass female bosses who try and struggle to have/balance it all, The Vanity Fair Diaries is a book that will resonate with young and old readers.
4 out of 5 stars.

Collect anecdotes about major and minor magazine publishing events taken from 9 years of Daytimer appointments, drop the name of every wealthy, powerful or flamboyant personality in NYC in the 80s and call it a book. Lots of sizzle...very little steak.
It is very sad that Dominick Dunne, one of the best chroniclers of the 80's scene is no longer around; he would have turned this hash into a terrific story.

I slogged through 100 pages of this book and had to give up. Most of the famous people the author talks about in those first 100 pages are not anyone I'm interested in, and frankly I was very bored. I kept hoping it would get better; instead I began to feel that the whole exercise was just obnoxious. Sorry, Tina Brown, you and your travails with Vanity Fair are not that interesting.

A charming insight on the world of magazines, and fashion. This book is a page turner and funny and witty read.
Strongly recommended to all those who admired Tina Brown in her Vanity Fair/New Yorker years.
Many thanks to Orion Publishing Group and Netgalley

Thank you to Net Galleries for this free copy. I admit I wouldn't be able to recognise Tina Brown in a line-up, and I have never read The Tatler, Vanity Fair or The New Yorker, and haven't heard of 90% of the people Tina comes across.

Having confessed that, these diaries were still an interesting read - if read in short spurts between novels. I wouldn't have liked to work with Ms Brown, someone who sacked her nanny for sneezing in her home. But found these recollections honest, and showed the energy, enthusiasm, self-belief & self-confidence needed to win in the media world. Tina hires & fires without a backward glance & has the boundless energy to work all day & network every evening to succeed.

In 1983 Tina Brown was a celebrated editor of UK society glossy 'Tatler. The indulged daughter of comfortably middle-class parents had graduated from Oxford and with a talent for words, networking and editing had turned around a moribund publication. When SI (Si) Newhouse, the owner of parent company Conde Nast, asked Tina to consult on his ailing magazine Vanity Fair she was both excited and concerned. Pitching her ideas to Newhouse Tina was catapulted into the New York media jungle where business was just as important as content. This book covers the 9 years Tina Brown worked with Vanity Fair, a time when professional acclaim had to be balanced with family life.

I loved every page of this book! Tina Brown was an aspiration to me as a young woman starting out in publishing in the early 1990s, a clever woman who had taken on the world. I moved out of publishing fairly quickly and reading this book I can see that what I felt was the personal issues I had with the industry were exactly that - I did not want to compete in such a business where you are only as good as your last deal. Brown tries to play down the ruthless aspect of her nature but it breaks through often. She has no compunction about moving people on and says what she feels about friends and colleagues. Although essentially a diary of the 1980s it is interesting to see that Boris Johnson is mentioned and Donald Trump is a regularly recurring character, whilst I have no doubt that Brown cam across them I wonder if they have been left in through the editing process to give a little piquancy and 'nowness'. The most moving parts are when Brown talks about her child G and his problems and also about her sadness at the rampaging of AIDS through the gay, liberal New York arts scene in the 1980s. Altogether a nostalgic romp from an inspirational, if not always likeable, woman.

Being a long-time subscriber of Vanity Fair, I found it great fun to read Tina Brown's diaries of her time as editor of the magazine in the 1980's. A .wunderkind in her late twenties who had transformed the British society magazine, Tatler, as well as marrying the much-older editor of the London Times, Harry Brown, Tina Brown was imported to the US by Si. Newhouse to work her magic on the struggling recently re-launched Vanity Fair

The book is full of gossipy insights into the movers and shakers of the 1980's. Many of these people are mostly forgotten today, except for the one that is no the President of the country. Her zingers are choice:

• Jerry Zipkin's face is like a huge inflated rubber dinghy, balanced on top of a short Humpty Dumpty body
• What of the poor Princess of Wales? What Charles can't stand is Diana's total absence of intellectual curiosity and her obsession with clothes.
• To get to this size she must have lived on nothing but communion wafers for a month. (Arianna Huffington)
• Aileen Mehle was in her Belle Watling getup of two thousand bows on her head and a giant skirt.
• Michael Huffington, he insisted, is gay and also a born again Christian - twice. "It's bad enough to be born again Christian once, but twice is too much. I dread to think what happened in-between.
• Boris Johnson is an epic shit and I hope he ends badly.
• Murdoch's face has degenerated to the melting rubber mask of a cartoon character like Nixon's.
• Saul Steinberg: Certain men love having "impossible" wives. It makes them feel powerful
• Peter GUber: What you have to understand is that Hollywood is ruled by their dicks. the business, movies, is all about two things. - power and sex.
• Richard Nixon will be like RIchard III. Nixon will have his demonology but also his admirers.
• War broke out with Iraq just as we were on our way to a dinner with Henry and Nancy Kissinger at River House..Arguments at table over who is best - but CNN wins hands down. We commented on the commentators, on who was ahead and who behind, as though they were players on a sports team.
• In person Jackie has an enormous head and a fragile presence. She has perfected the fascinated stare. Sitting finishing school straight. "Crazed is what I decided about Jackie by the end of the evening. I felt is you cleared the room and left her alone, she'd be in front of a mirror, screaming.
• The crown is in crisis. The prince looked desperately unhappy. Having felt so sympathetic to Diana until now, I suddenly had an intuition that perhaps he is being set up. She is playing the press like a fiddly, and since Charles cannot answer or explain, he's coming off as a villain.

And wonderful things about Donald Trump:
• The sulky, Elivisy Donald Trump "because he's a brass act." And he owns his own football team and he thinks he should negotiate arms control agreements with the Soviet Union.
• The Art of the Deal has a crassness I like. In the end, the only thing about seld-serving books like this is, di they capture the true voice?
• Trump was all over me trying to charm me into a favorable presentation in the mag. "Tina, What do you think of the Newsweek cover story on me?" "I haven't read it," I said. "You know I could have had time. They wanted me and I saw them too. But Newsweek scooped them. Who do you think is better, Tina?" "Time, "I said mischieveously.
• Donald Turmp's book party for the Art of the Deal. It looked as if Trump had emptied out every croupier from his casinos and every gold digger who ever got into spaghetti straps
• Ivana has been upgraded to superstar victim of a brutish, philandering husband, which she is playing to the hilt.
• Oh my God, Marie! Look what he just did! The "he ' in question was Donald Trump! She saw his familiar Elvis coif making off across the Crystal Room. The sneaky, petulant infant was clearly still stewing about her takedown in VF over a year ago and had taken a glass of wine from the tray and emptied it down her back! What a coward! He couldn't confront her to her face!

There is nothing especially socially redeeming here, just a lot of gossipy fun. Look at it as a Christmas Present to yourself.