Do Let’s Have Another Drink: The Dry Wit and Fizzy Life of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother

Historian Russell’s (The Ship of Dreams) collection of 101 short vignettes isn’t the usual biography about the mother of the late Queen Elizabeth II. It starts with her early days and the 1920s when she was an aristocratic, London debutante with a few suitors. The book shows the evolution of how she became Princess Elizabeth/Duchess of York when she wed Albert. Elizabeth as Queen Consort and later the Queen Mother could be salty and sarcastic as indicated by the book’s subtitle, though the main title doesn’t do her justice. The one memorable mention of alcohol was when she referred to a cocktail as a “drinky-poo.” The book also discusses her brothers, who were killed or held as prisoners of war and traumatized. The well-written book doesn’t dwell on details known through history and popular culture, such as The Crown, The King’s Speech, and media coverage. Stories about a king marrying an American divorcée and the rocky relationship of Diana and Charles are briefly told only as Elizabeth saw them.