757-416-6627 (Intl.)
Not a customer.
Craig Brown's book paints a 'vivid and remarkably telling' picture of Elizabeth II
As a "man who supposedly trades in throwaway wisecracks", you wouldn't think the satirist Craig Brown would be the person to "tell us something thought-provoking, perhaps even deep, about monarchy", said Stephen Smith in The Observer . Yet in his glorious new book – a follow-up to similar works about Princess Margaret and the Beatles – that's exactly what he does.
Brown has hoovered up virtually everything ever written about Elizabeth II – decades-old newspaper reports, the "memoirs of courtiers, flunkies and hangers-on" – and out of this material has crafted 112 thematic chapters, focused on everything from the Queen's love of horse racing to the dreams people have had about her. (The oddest belongs to Paul Theroux, who imagined "her nipples cool against my ears".)
It adds up to a "vivid and remarkably telling study of our late head of state". Brown has perhaps only one serious thesis, said Matthew Parris in Literary Review : "almost everyone, he says, goes slightly bonkers" in the Queen's presence. "We gabble, we dry up, we lose our thread, we gawp, we stammer." Kingsley Amis even avoided beans before meeting her, so anxious was he about farting or belching.
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Brown devotes a chapter to the "brisk dispatch with which she would terminate conversations". "How very interesting," she'd intone, before moving on. As much as this "wonderfully readable" book is about the Queen, it is also "about ourselves as a nation, reflected and refracted through our own relationships with one person".
"I enjoyed 'A Voyage Around the Queen ' so much that I wished it were longer than its 672 pages," said Christopher Howse in The Daily Telegraph . We learn that when Mahatma Gandhi sent Elizabeth a hand-woven tablecloth as a wedding gift, her grandmother, Queen Mary, declared it a "horrible thing", having mistaken it for one of his loincloths. When, at the beacon lighting for the Queen's Silver Jubilee, the officer in charge confided that "absolutely everything" had gone wrong, she replied: "Oh good. What fun!"
Brown even has "unmistakably irreverent fun" with the aftermath of her death, said John Banville in The Guardian – noting the battier expressions of mourning, including Norwich Council's decision to close a bike rack as a mark of respect. Funny, clever and "gloriously bizarre", his book is an "astute account of the well-nigh unaccountable public life of an intensely private person".
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Cartoons Thursday's cartoons - Trump's inclinations, undecided voters, and more
By The Week US Published 12 September 24
The Week Recommends However hard you try to resist it, 'you will want to know the who, what, where and why-dunit'
By The Week UK Published 12 September 24
In The Spotlight Growing numbers say they have seen a UFO – and even US politicians are getting caught up in the trend
By Elizabeth Carr-Ellis, The Week UK Published 12 September 24
The Week Recommends Kate Prince's hip-hop take on Lewis Carroll classic is a lot of fun
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published 12 September 24
The Week Recommends Netflix documentary includes 'remarkable' archival footage from near-disastrous moon mission
By Ellie O'Mahoney, The Week UK Published 11 September 24
The Week Recommends BBC Two's three-part documentary features 'genuinely revealing' interviews with the Ukrainian president
The Week Recommends Marinated feta; go-to chocolate cake; a fresh way with Brussels: Autumn is not going to know what hit it
By Scott Hocker, The Week US Published 10 September 24
The Week Recommends From the depths of the Namib Desert to Finnish Lapland, these remote destinations are ideal for stargazing
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published 10 September 24
The Week Recommends The Scottish seaside town has it all, from cheese toastie shacks to Michelin-starred restaurants
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published 9 September 24
The Week Recommends This Cornish seaside village offers plenty of fun for surfers and families alike
By Hollie Clemence, The Week UK Published 9 September 24
The Week is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site . © Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.
Advertisement
Supported by
Caro’s book on Robert Moses, a city planner who reshaped New York, is also a reflection on “the dangers of unchecked power,” and remains more resonant and relevant than ever.
By Alexandra Alter
When Robert Caro was writing “The Power Broker,” his 1974 biography of the urban planner Robert Moses, he often heard a deflating refrain.
“I must have heard a hundred times, nobody’s going to read a book about Robert Moses,” Caro said on a recent morning. “And I really did believe what people said, that nobody would read the book. I did believe that.
“Now they tell me it’s in its 74th printing,” he added brightly. “That’s a lot of books.”
Five decades after its publication, “The Power Broker” endures as a revered classic, prized as much for its elegant, novelistic prose as its blunt lessons on the uses and abuses of political power. The book that Caro feared might never be published went on to win the Pulitzer Prize, sell hundreds of thousands of copies and influence generations of journalists, historians and politicians.
Now, in an astonishing turn for a 50-year-old book and its 88-year-old author, “The Power Broker” seems more popular and relevant than ever. Caro’s iconic portrait of Moses — a megalomaniacal city planner who reshaped New York City with his bridges and expressways, often destroying communities that stood in his way — has inspired video and board games , a Broadway play and a “ Repeal Robert Moses” movement, led by an organization that aims to reclaim the city from cars.
This year, “The Power Broker” is being celebrated with an installation at the New-York Historical Society, which features a selection of handwritten notes, photographs and edited manuscript pages from Caro’s archives. A viral podcast series about the book, created by the “99 Percent Invisible” host and “Power Broker” superfan Roman Mars, has drawn an enormous audience, with more than four million downloads. So far this year, “The Power Broker” — which spans 1,286 pages — has sold more than 40,000 copies, far outpacing its sales in recent years and beating many new releases. Some cultural critics have declared that 2024 is “the Year of ‘The Power Broker’.”
And the book’s audience will likely grow even more, with the release of the first ever digital edition of “The Power Broker” this month, on Sept. 16.
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in .
Want all of The Times? Subscribe .
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
1-click Use in WordPress. Next, add the code directly to the 'Additional CSS' box. Then, click the 'Publish' button to make your changes live. Now, you can visit one of your WordPress blog posts and see your new author info box. Here is how the author bio box looked in our theme.
5. Molongui Authorship. Molongui Authorship is a great WordPress author bio box plugin that lets you display an author box, co-authors, and guest contributors. This plugin makes it easy to create author bios and guest author bios without creating a WordPress account.
You can do this using the Post Author Block. After you've filled out the author's information in the user settings (as we did in the previous method), simply navigate to the post or page where you want to add a WordPress author bio. Click on the + icon to open up your blocks menu. Then, search for "post author:".
4. Fill in the information for the plugin name and description. If you go to your plugin list, you should see this new one in the list. Next, we'll add some information to the plugin file. When we are finished, the bio box will appear below posts. Here's the information we're going to display: Author's name.
Note: To take full advantage of this feature, make sure each author on your site has a completed bio. You can add this by going to the WordPress admin panel: 1. Navigate to Users > Profile. 2. Fill in the "Biographical Info" section with the author's bio. 3. Optionally, you can upload a profile picture by associating the email with a Gravatar ...
Demo & Download. 5. Avatar. Avatar is a powerful author bio solution for Elementor websites. It helps readers to know more about the authors and to contact them personally through social sites. The plugin has a block-based editor to add or remove sections like user picture, name, biography, icons, etc.
Step 4: Add a New Author. Now you are ready to add a new author. This will be the first of many you add. Click on the "Add New" tab that is located on the left-side menu under the main plugin menu area. This takes you to the author bio page where you can add a new bio and create your first shortcode to display it.
5. Author Bio Box. Author Bio Box is a free WordPress plugin that displays author information below posts on your site. These author profiles can include a photo, relevant social media links, and a short description. The design of the author box is minimalist, ensuring that profiles don't distract from page content. 6.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when creating WordPress author pages: Make it visually appealing: Use high-quality images and designs to make the author page visually appealing and engaging for readers.; Include a brief biography: Provide a brief bio of the author, highlighting their skills and experience in the relevant field.; List articles written by the author: Include a list of all the ...
Check out our comprehensive list of the top free WordPress author bio box plugins on the market. Designing a Sexy Author Bio Feature. When it comes to designing an author bio, make sure to: Keep the article's author and readers satisfied by choosing specific design elements; Consider up and coming trends to make your author bios really stand out
Adding an author bio can significantly enhance your readers credibility and engagement. An author bio not only make an introduction with your readers to the person behind the content but also helps to built trust and a deeper connection. If you don't know how to add one, then you're in the right place. Here I'll show you how to display ...
Additionally, you can add tabs to your author box showing that writer's latest posts. It also integrates with WooCommerce for your online store. 6. Meks Smart Author Widget. Meks Smart Author Widget is a powerful WordPress plugin that lets you add an author bio to any widget-ready area of your WordPress website.
Installing a WordPress author bio plugin is a straightforward process. From your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New. Search for the plugin you want to install, then click "Install Now ...
An author bio box in WordPress may not seem like a requirement for most situations. However, adding that personal element helps develop greater engagement from the reader. It also helps the author by establishing expertise. Discover more of what WordPress hosting can do for you and how it might enhance online success.
Description. Simple Author Box adds a responsive author box at the end of your posts, showing the author name, author gravatar and author description - author bio. It also adds over 30 social profile fields on WordPress user profile screen, allowing to display the author social icons in the author box.
Next, we need to configure a few settings to make sure the author box shows after the content of your blog post. There are four setting we need to change according to the screenshot below: Rename the block of code to Author bio. Enable PHP code execution. Select After content for the insertion type. Save Settings 1 - 16.
The Post Author Biography block allows you to embed a user's biography from the About Yourself section in Users > Profile into your page or post. In order to add a Post Author Biography block, click on the Block Inserter (+) icon. You can also type /Post Author Biography and hit enter in a new paragraph block to add one quickly.
This is an author bio box, which opens an author page when the writer's name is clicked. Filled with some background about the author, maybe a photo, and a list of articles for which they contributed: ... name, description, total posts, and list of contributions. Here are some of the benefits of WordPress author pages: Contributors can ...
1. Choose a WordPress Theme with Author Boxes. One of the easiest ways to include author boxes on your website is to choose a theme that offers the option as a built-in feature. This is especially important if you have more than one author, as most themes only enable you to display boxes for a single writer.
In this article, we'll learn how to beautifully create an author bio section into your blog posts page for free using the WP Author Bio WordPress plugin in a...
The following three plugins were the top three plugins listed on WordPress for 'author bio' that: Had at least 1,000 active installations. Were displayed as tested with either the latest WordPress version or the one before, showing they continued to be maintained (a t the time of writing, the most recent version had only been released a ...
This Plugin shows author's biography in the foot of the posts, also adds social networks and a link to see all the entries written by the author.
Adding an author biography is a great way to add personalization to your WordPress site. There are several plugins available that can add this functionality to your site. As an example, we'll use the Author Bio plugin we found in the plugins directory on the WordPress website. This particular plugin can even pull in the author's Gravatar ...
"I enjoyed 'A Voyage Around the Queen' so much that I wished it were longer than its 672 pages," said Christopher Howse in The Daily Telegraph.We learn that when Mahatma Gandhi sent Elizabeth a ...
A former investigative reporter at Newsday who was born and raised in New York City, he received a yearlong Carnegie fellowship to work on a biography of Moses, and quickly ran out of money.