I am so thankful to FSG, Craig Brown, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this galley before publication day. I really enjoyed the dialogue and plot of this book and can’t wait to chat this one up with my friends!

I found this book to be a chore to read. The writing style itself is fluid, but the content is lacking. Rather than being a deep exploration of Elizabeth II's life and legacy, the content is more a series of frivolous vignettes about less than admirable people and their glancing contact with British royalty.

Fascinating book. I have always been interested in the royal family. The queen was an amazing woman. This book was written well, with a lot of new things I had not read. I would recommend it to anyone.

As per all of Craig Brown's work, this is brilliant - funny, touching, respectful, and yet completely irreverent. Packed full of variety - there's not a dull page

I had previously read and enjoyed Craig Brown’s unconventional biographies of the Beatles and Princess Anne, but I think his latest, “Q: A Voyage Around the Queen,” is my favorite. As in his earlier books, Brown has amassed a huge collections of facts, trivia, and personal anecdotes about Queen Elizabeth II and presents them in a loosely chronological and wholly original look at the life of Great Britain’s longest serving monarch. This is not your grandmother’s royal biography—it’s more like a fan’s scrapbook, lovingly compiled over the years and filled with everything imaginable. Brown recounts the Queen’s interactions with politicians (the Idi Amin bits are priceless and the Margaret Thatcher section makes me hope Brown’s next book is about her) and with pop stars (a young Paul McCartney won an essay contest about her coronation). He peppers the book with fun statistics, such as the fact that “nine out of ten living human beings were born during the Queen’s reign” or that a new world record of “roughly half the people on the planet” watched her funeral, as well as with fresh and striking observations, as when he notes that “Some wondered if she thought the world smelled of fresh paint” because “everything she set eyes on was cleaner, brighter, newer, grander, cheerier, smarter than it had been a few days before.” Brown’s fondness for the Queen is
obvious, but Q isn’t a hagiography; there is a section, for example, about her less-than-admirable treatment of her long-time and loyal horse trainer. Overall, however, I finished the book with a new appreciation of Elizabeth and the hope that Brown will continue to produce these fun and fresh biographies.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for my honest review. An unmitigated pleasure!

Did we need another biography of the Queen? Probably not, but I was interested in this because it was billed as a fresh perspective on the subject. Which is a little hard to understand given that the book is essentially a compilation of things previously written about the queen.

If you don’t know much about Queen Elizabeth, this is a fine place to start. It’s thorough, moves well, and includes both the important history and some fun anecdotal content. If you’re already relatively informed on the subject, there probably isn’t much point to reading this.

I liked Brown’s style for the most part as well as his curation of subject matter, though he does have a tendency to insert himself into the narrative, which doesn’t add anything to the material and feels vaguely obnoxious.

As a royal aficionado, it's no surprise that I'd be interested in reading Q: A Voyage Around t he Queen. It's by Craig Brown, whose book about Princess Margaret I've also read.

It's accurately titled a voyage around the Queen because that's truly what it is: not a biography, but various anecdotes and stories with some peripheral (and sometimes, very peripheral) connection to the Queen. The structure is not chronological overall, but each chapter has its own theme: corgis, horses, poet laureates, even Idi Amin.

Even with the book's huge (700 page-ish) length, I was amazed at how few of the tidbits shared were new to me. I guess that's testament to the amount of royal-themed reading I've done. Here are some bits I found interesting:

* Elizabeth was precocious and dutiful/detail-oriented, even as a child. She lined up her books on shelves and kept her clothes and belongings "immaculately tidy." At age 5, she had some silver pieces in a miniature cottage, which she insisted to her nanny be wrapped in newspaper "to prevent it getting tarnished."

* Brown describes Elizabeth's life as "ninety-six years of concentrated self-control," which seems apt.

* Among Philip and Elizabeth's wedding gifts were 148 pairs of nylon stockings from Americans sensitive to Britain's post-WWII shortage.

* Elizabeth and Philip would have preferred for Charles to be born at their country house, but "felt that a possible heir to the throne should not first see the light in a rented house." Philip gave Charles a cricket bat for his first birthday, explaining "I want him to be a man's man." On being told that his grandfather was found dead by someone who had taken him tea, young Charles asked, "Who drank the tea?"

* "The Queen is a very private person; a loner. She longs to be in a room with nobody else. The dogs, the horses, her husband ... She has few friends and if she had to choose between the dogs, the horses and friends, there is no doubt which she would choose." (so says a daughter of the late Earl Mountbatten)

* "Perhaps, above all, the corgis were a distraction from the constraints of such a formal existence. 'She has used the dogs not just to put others at their ease, but to ease her own discomfort. If there is an awkward lull, she will turn her attention to one of the dogs to fill the silence, or bend down to give them tidbits from her plate at the table.'"

* Although she talked with more people than anyone who has ever lived, the Queen was never a natural conversationalist. Her typical questions were "How long have you been waiting?" "Where have you come from," and "What do you do?" "She is absolutely direct. less charming (than her mother) ... she was more like her father, who found it hard to think of anything to say to anyone at any time." "She has none of the warmth of her mother or son, but is not quite as rude as her husband." lol

* "'People revered the Crown, but they were not really interested in the Queen for the very simple reason that she is not really interesting.' Nevertheless, 'her uninterestingness is a positive asset.'"

* The author points out that the Queen must keep a pleasant expression on her face during engagements, often for hours on end, and how challenging this must be. Once, someone complained that she looked bored or upset. The Queen told an aide, "I've the kind of face that if I'm not smiling, I look cross. but I'm not cross. If you try to smile for two hours continuously it gives you a nervous tic."

* At Diana's funeral, the archbishop of Canterbury (head clergy of the Church of England) urged Diana's brother to preach on the "'Christian message of hope and life evermore in God.' (The brother) listens politely, but leaves (the archbishop) with the impression that he has already worked out what he wants to say.'" If you watched, you'll recall that his talk had no mention of Christianity in any form. I still remember the hopeless vibe of the service.

* More about Diana's death: an author quoted felt the mass mourning "testified to the struggle for self-expression of individuals who were spiritually and imaginatively deprived, who released their own suppressed sorrow in grieving for a woman they did not know." I wish I'd phrased it that well, but I felt very similarly.

The author seems fascinated by the phrase "camp" and the group "Sex Pistols," as both terms occur over and over. This book is organized in such a way that it appears he read dozens of royal books, and regurgitated his notes into a book. Parts were interesting to me as a royal fan, and I skimmed the rest.

I’m a fan of this type of all encompassing history. Looking at a well known person from different angles does a great service to seeing them as thoroughly as we can. This was a well done look at an extremely familiar figure that managed to give us something new

Thanks to NetGalley and FSG for the ARC of this title.

I've read a few other of Craig Brown's biographies in this style, and they're well-suited for the sort of figures he covers - individuals who have become the sort of omnipresent cultural figure where there's such a glut of content about them that manages to be surface-level. 99 "glimpses" was a great amount for Princess Margaret, 150 glimpses was far too many for the Beatles, but the 102 or so here manage to be just right for QEII. Between this and the Margaret book, I think Brown's a little too pro-Windsor to dig into anything particularly salacious, but the queen seems to have been kind of awkward to talk to and this captures the impact of that throughout.

This was a fascinating book. I thought the statement about knowing more about the history of the Royal Family better than his own was probably true for many people. I also found the Anne Frank reference touching. I was familiar with several of the stories told, but there were far more that were new to me in this 800+ page book. I found some chapters were more interesting than others, but I enjoyed learning so much more about the late Queen.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) copy of this book and I am voluntarily leaving an honest review.

This book offers a unique and insightful portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, moving beyond traditional biographies to explore her life through a kaleidoscopic lens. It examines her extraordinary public image, her countless encounters with people worldwide, and the enigmatic nature of her personality, revealing a fascinating and often surprising perspective on the world’s most famous woman.

This is a long book, yet it ended all too soon. It’s fun, quirky, and heartwarming, revealing truths about the queen but even more about ourselves. The audiobook narration added to the enjoyment of the text.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

A Voyage Around the Queen by Craig Brown is not quite as frivolous as the author’s book about Princess Margaret, Ma’am Darling, perhaps reflecting the serious responsibility of the role inherited by her sister in 1952. Undertaking a review of Queen Elizabeth II’s long and eventful life is an enormous task for a biographer, but I was confident that Brown would succeed following the similar scale of his 2020 book One Two Three Four about the Beatles. Over the course of 112 mostly short chapters, Brown focuses on a handful of key events such as the Coronation alongside other aspects of royal life. These include the corgis, the Royal Yacht and a quirky profile of Jeanette Charles, the Essex-based doppelganger who had a career late in life portraying the Queen in numerous films. Given that the Queen was one of the most famous people in the world, her sense of humour and her true views about her subjects remain somewhat mysterious. While many biographies about the Royal Family are either fawning or scathing, ‘A Voyage Around the Queen’ settles for a more balanced and pleasingly tongue-in-cheek view instead. Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

I agree with another reviewer. It was...interesting. I expected a book about the Queen, but the author went down a lot of rabbit holes. Her last days and beyond was new to me. Also fascinating how people remember what they said to her, but not what she said to them.

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. It was a quirky read. There was a whole chapter on the corgis and another entire chapter on people's dreams about the queen, but there was also some interesting information.

Since the death of Queen Elizabeth, I’ve been wanting to read a bio of her. But I haven’t been able to steel myself for a hefty, pages and pages long, brick of a book, which they all seem to be. And I wasn’t attracted to the idea of a hagiography, nor to a scandalous tell-all. So when the opportunity to read this unconventional biography arose, it seemed the answer to my prayers. And, for the most part, it was. It ended up being a lengthier read than I’d expected. No surprise, I guess, since Elizabeth R had quite a long life. Instead of a straight year-by-year slog through her 96 years on the field, Brown chose to reveal the Queen’s life through various sideways lenses. It was fairly linear, which helped keep it organized; sometimes funny, sometimes poignant and always affectionate. I did find it to be just a bit too long. For one example, the section on the Royal Yacht, while interesting, was far longer than it needed to be. And, while the first chapter outlining dreams that various people have had about the Queen was fun and clever, the several more chapters about dreams were unnecessary. It drug a good thing out too long. And I didn’t care for the several chapters which were written as if by Elizabeth II herself. Those seemed disrespectful, especially in a book that, as I said before, otherwise treated her with such generosity and warmth. These minor quibbles aside, I really enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to anybody interested in the Royal Family.

Thanks to Netgalley for the copy to review.

It was...interesting. There was a lot of intriguing stories about HM and her world, but I was kind of not expecting all the background information about other things/what was going on in the world at the time as well. I was more thinking it would be a straight book about her, so I found those parts a little bit distracting.

I really needed an introduction to set the stage for this book, I needed more information about why it was written and what the intended output was.

3.5 Stars
I very much enjoyed this author's similarly styled book about The Beatles, so was intrigued to ingest this one about Queen Elizabeth II. This, too, was a delight. The book clocks in at almost 700 pages, crammed with stories about this royal icon's Coronation, The Royal Yacht Brittania, conversations with dignitaries and famous people on meet and greets, her death in 2022 and the worldwide reaction to it...and so much more. Each chapter addresses a topic, so it's helpful to finish the chapter because if you leave it aside and come back to it there's a disorienting effect. It's also possible with this type of book to skim through chapters if you're not particularly interested in that spectrum of royal life discussed. For instance, I've read quite a lot of books on this Queen that covered her Coronation, and there's so much to "talk" about that day. The author really goes into the weeds about random people touched by this event from average Brits having Coronation celebratory lunches in the streets to a young Paul McCartney who won a writing contest with his essay about the new Queen. I was particularly interested in how Queen Elizabeth II conducted her conversations with countless people on meet lines, often using the parting comment "Very interesting!" as a trope to move on to the next person. This voluminous book is chock full of quirky facts to satisfy both the avid and casual royal readers.

Thank you to the publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux who provided an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

I have been dipping in and out of this book for a couple of months now. It is a delight, you can read a chapter of two when busy and come back later and start again. A delight.

This book is written in an anecdotal style so it is not chronological.
I have been reading many excerpts which led to my request.
It is interesting but far too long.
I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book.