Dickie Arbiter has a pretty neat background history. He was born in 1940 in an air raid shelter while German planes were bombing London. His parents were German-Jewish, and had fled Germany to escape Nazi persecution. I can't imagine what his parents went through, and I certainly can't imagine giving birth in an air raid shelter while being bombed. That's a dramatic start to life. Arbiter began a career in journalism, eventually landing a job as press spokesman for Queen Elizabeth II from 1988 to 2000. He and his daughter are well known media commentators on the Royal Family.

I generally love a good memoir, and I picked this one up when I was at the local library looking for something else that they didn't have. I am glad that I tried it out, because it was an interesting behind the scenes account of how life works behind the palace doors. He worked for the Queen during a really rough point in her reign, with the death of Princess Diana and other issues. I am sure that it was quite difficult to be a press spokesman during those times, and I valued the personal account of that. The only real issue that I had with it, was that I got the feeling that he has told some of these stories a million times over the years. It was a fine book, especially since I didn't spend any money on it. (Support your libraries, friends.)