New books: One royal engagement and one many hope for

Hardly a month had passed since the engagement of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Daniel Westling was announced before Jenny Alexandersson, for some years a royal reporter at the leading Swedish weekly Svensk Damtidning, was ready with her book on the engagement. Förlovningen 2009 is published by Schibsted Förlag in cooperation with Svensk Damtidning. It is a rather typical commemorative book which includes some background information on the couple, the story of their relationship, something on earlier royal weddings and engagements, something on the weddings of their various friends – and a lot of pictures.

http://www.schibstedforlag.se/Shop/Article/View/?articleId=1043

For a long time now the press has also been eagerly speculating about a possible engagement between Prince William of Britain and his girlfriend Kate Middleton. Meanwhile Mainstream Publishing in Edinburgh in early April released Kate: Kate Middleton: Princess-in-Waiting, a book by the journalist Claudia Joseph which seems to deal almost as much with Kate Middleton’s family history as with herself.

http://www.rbooks.co.uk/product.aspx?id=1845964209

The historian A. N. Wilson was not much impressed in his review in The Guardian on 12 April:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/12/kate-middleton-book-review

Claudia Joseph herself had an article on Kate Middleton’s family history in The Mail on Sunday on 23 March:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1163716/Revealed-Secrets-Middletons-money-Kates-ancestors-fortune.html

Even though she is not yet even engaged to Prince William and no-one can know for sure that she ever will be, this is actually the second book on Kate Middleton. The first, William’s Princess: The Love Story that will Change the Royal Family Forever by Robert Jobson, was published back in 2006.