LONDON: Prince Harry and wife Meghan blamed “viper” courtiers for widening their rift with the royal family, according to extracts from a new book published in The Times on Saturday.
The couple say they did not contribute to the new biography “Finding Freedom,” written by journalists Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand, but friends of the couple provided much of its content.
The book, serialized in The Times, will claim that Harry felt “unprotected” by his family, and lay bare his split from brother William and his wife Kate.
Kate even refused to make eye contact with her sister-in-law at their final engagement in March, according to the new release.
Harry apparently referred to senior courtiers as “vipers” who felt that the global popularity of the couple was overshadowing the family and “needed to be reined in,” according to extracts.
The book, to be released on August 11, also suggested that Harry, 35, was the driving force behind the couple’s move away from the family, with Meghan telling her husband that she “gave up my entire life for this family.”
The couple now live in Los Angeles and were in the headlines this week for taking legal action against one or more paparazzi whom they accuse of taking pictures of their son Archie without permission.
Pressure from tabloids has dogged Harry throughout his life, and he blames them for the death of his mother Princess Diana.
Meghan, 38, told a friend that tabloid criticism was like “death by a thousand cuts,” according to the new book.
The authors are sympathetic to the couple, and say the book will “correct the record” on the acrimonious split.
However, it does acknowledge that Harry and Meghan’s decision to keep the family in the dark about their plans “created a lot of ill will.”
Harry and Meghan book lifts lid on bitter split with family
https://arab.news/mpn8h
Harry and Meghan book lifts lid on bitter split with family
- The book will be released on August 11
- The couple now live in Los Angeles
What We Are Reading Today: Frogs of the World: A Guide to Every Family
Authors: Mark O’Shea & Simon Maddock
With more than 7,600 known species, frogs exhibit an extraordinary range of forms and behaviors, from those that produce toxins so deadly that they could kill a human many times over to those that can survive being frozen in ice.
“Frogs of the World” is an essential guide to this astonishingly diverse group of animals. An in-depth introduction covers everything from the origins and evolution of frogs to their life cycles and defense strategies.
What We Are Reading Today: Sixty Miles Upriver
Author: Richard E. Ocejo
Newburgh is a small postindustrial city of some 28,000 people located 60 miles north of New York City in the Hudson River Valley.
Like many similarly sized cities across America, it has been beset with poverty and crime after decades of decline, with few opportunities for its predominantly minority residents.
“Sixty Miles Upriver” tells the story of how Newburgh started gentrifying, describing what happens when White creative professionals seek out racially diverse and working-class communities and revealing how gentrification is increasingly happening outside large city centers in places where it unfolds in new ways.
What We Are Reading Today: A Death in the Rainforest
Author: Don Kulick
As a young anthropologist, Don Kulick went to the tiny village of Gapun in New Guinea to document the death of the native Tayap, an endangered Papuan language.
“A Death in the Rainforest” takes readers inside the village, revealing what it is like to live in a place carved out like a cleft in the middle of a tropical rainforest.
This book offers insight into the impact of white society on the farthest reaches of the globe — and the story of why this anthropologist realized finally that he had to give up his study of this language and this village.
An engaging, deeply perceptive, and brilliant interrogation of what it means to study a culture, the book takes readers into a world that endures in the face of massive changes, one that is on the verge of disappearing forever.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Moon That Turns You Back’
- The book contains various poems, some experimental, some soaked in grief, some documenting the mundane, but always with a purpose. She perhaps sums it best when she writes: “I remember so you can forget”
Author: Hala Alyan
The first time I heard Palestinian-American artist Hala Alyan speak was when she acted in the starring role in Lebanese-American filmmaker Darine Hotait’s 2015 short film, “I Say Dust.”
In those 15 minutes of beautifully shot frames, you visually travel through time, space and various emotional states as Alyan leads the way.
Both Hotait and Alyan were deliberate in showcasing their Arab-centric stories of belonging and identity. Alyan’s fierce eyes were kind but intense on the screen; her movement was soft but firm and when she spoke, she left you speechless — but in the best way.
In the film, she was the epitome of poetry, and now you can explore Alyan’s words further with her latest work, a book of poetry titled, “The Moon That Turns You Back,” which was published in March this year.
For the past decade or so, Alyan has explored stories of complexities of identity and the impact of displacement, especially in relation to the Palestinian diaspora. In this latest collection, her writing takes us through Brooklyn, Beirut, Palestine and places that exist in between or in fragmented memories.
Alyan said that she does not have just one middle name, she has six, and not a single one of those are her mother’s. She writes evocative and concize lines such as “A city full of men still has a mother,” and “every time I tell the story, I warp it,” and her poetry is vividly descriptive with lines such as “lipstick like a sliced finger.” She also writes relatable lines such as “I’m terrible at parties, secrets and money,” and “a body is a calendar of breaths.”
The book contains various poems, some experimental, some soaked in grief, some documenting the mundane, but always with a purpose. She perhaps sums it best when she writes: “I remember so you can forget.”
Alyan is an adjunct assistant professor of applied psychology at New York University after earning her doctorate in clinical psychology from Rutgers University. She has also published several novels and well-received essays. She won the Arab American Book Award in 2013 and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2018.
What We Are Reading Today: Plankton: A Worldwide Guide
Authors: Tom Jackson & Jennifer Parker
“Plankton” are the unsung heroes of planet Earth. Passive drifters through the world’s seas, oceans, and freshwater environments, most are invisible or very small, but some are longer than a whale. They are the global ocean’s foundation food, supporting almost all oceanic life, and they are also vitally important for land-based plants, animals, and other organisms. “Plankton” provides an incomparable look at these remarkable creatures, opening a window on the elegance and grace of microscopic marine life.
