Books
If the bottom line for you is finding the cheapest price for a book, then go Add All Book Search and Price Comparison, where you can type in a title in its new book section, its used book section, or its video or music sections, and it will do a comparison of prices from lowest to highest, including shipping. The drawback is that you can't get a comparison for a batch of several titles together, and it doesn't take into account places that have unusually low shipping charges, such as Hamilton Books, or the free shipping you get when you buy over $25 worth of merchandise from Amazon. Still, it is worth looking at to make sure you get the best deal on an individual title, and it can help you save even more by easily determining which British books are carried by the US book sites, so you save a substantial amount on postage by not ordering from England unless it is unavailable in the US.
Each of the superstores has its advantages. Amazon is good for one stop shopping for books, videos, and music. Barnes and Noble is one of the fastest shippers, since I have frequently received orders from them only two days after placing an order. Both now offer many used titles through individual sellers.

Two other good sources for US books are Book Closeouts and Edward Hamilton Books. These are remainder sites from which I have purchased such titles as Princess Diana: a True Fairy Tale, Camilla: the King's Mistress, The Housekeeper's Diary, and several others.  Discounts are usually 50-80%, and shipping is very cheap. (I once paid $5 for shipping on 10 hardcovers which cost $45 total.) If you like to read as much as I do, you'll find yourself returning to these sites for many other books of all kinds. Keep in mind that titles found here are often no longer available at the superstores, so when they're gone from here, the only other recourse is used book sources. Of these, my favorite is Advanced Book Exchange, though I have also used Alibris. Both are search engines for the inventory of thousands of their member booksellers in the US, Canada, Britain, and Australia, and you can order directly from the site. You can also place want lists with them at no charge. It is far better to get your out of print books directly from their member booksellers instead of the book search services at the superstores, since their prices are a small fraction of what the superstores charge for out of print books. Both are included in the search results of Add All Book Search and Price Comparison.

Some magazines which you may have missed on their initial appearance on newsstands are still available through the net. Back issues of Hello! magazine and other celebrity magazines clear back to the first issue can be obtained from Magazines Galore at prices ranging from five to seven pounds or eight to eleven dollars. UK collectibles has some magazines and a section of Royalty collectibles which includes back issues of copies of Majesty and Royalty magazines, jigsaw puzzles, issues from the series, Diana, the Untold Story, and A Century of Royals, commemorative booklets from the 1981 and 1986 weddings, and numerous other items.

You can also get back issues directly from Hello!. Notable issues to consider are 7 September 1997 (the memorial issue), 31 October 2000 (the Kensington Palace exhibit of the Catharine Walker dresses that was there during 2000-2001, 26 June 2001 (her 40th birthday), and 31 July 2001 (the 20th anniversary of the Royal Wedding).  Their site lists an email address to contact for further information about availability, prices, shipping and means of payment at hello@hellomagazine.com or you can send your request to:

                                             Back Issues Department
                                             Hello! Magazine
                                             Wellington House
                                             69-71 Upper Ground
                                             London   SE1 9PQ
                                             United Kingdom

Pitkin Guides still stocks their Princess Diana guidebook by Brian Hoey, which was reprinted in 2001 and is stocked again at the online bookstores. To retrieve it, type: Diana Princess of Wales in the search box. The price is 3.99 pounds ($6.37) plus shipping. The site also has Charles and Camilla: a Royal Occasion, as well as their guidebooks, posters, calendars, cd-roms, screeenslavers, and slides of places in Britain. 

An interesting novel which came out in August 1999 is  Kay Kellam's A Life to Di For, in which a woman reporter travels back 400 years in time to get one of the scoops of all time--what really happened in the tunnel. An excerpt is available on its listing at Amazon. I have also reviewed it on the Book and Video Reviews, J-S page of this site.

An unusual and humorous fictional piece inspired by Charles and Diana about "Prince Arthur" and  "Princess Susan"  is the scenario, All the King's Men, which was written by J. Neil Schulman in 1983 for a television movie which was never made. In it she tires of royal life and flees to America in search of a good divorce lawyer, but she returns to "Arthur" on her own terms. It is titled Profile in Silver and Other Screenwritings, and you can purchase it from Amazon for $27.50, with used copies available as cheaply as $20.63.
 
Susan Maxwell Skinner, who was a reporter covering Princess Diana in the early 1980s, wrote two books on her in 1982 and 1999, the latter titled, Diana, an English Rose. I emphasize this because she published another book in October, 2001 titled Diana: Memory of a Rose, which is less than half the length of the 1999 book and is paperback, but it is a limited edition and will be personally inscribed to you. She also is on the lecture circuit with a multi-media presentation about Diana, and you can buy the the latest book, a poster of Diana titled, "Diana: a Legacy of Beauty, Love and Service",  or a set of postcards with the same image, see pictures from her memorabilia collection, which she sometimes brings on public display in conjunction with her speaking engagements, or inquire about her availability as a speaker at her site.

A lovely little book for vicarious sightseeing is  A Walk for Diana: The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk by Tom Corby and Lucy Trench. It was published by The Royal Parks and it consists of lavishly illustrated and excellent essays about Princess Diana, Spencer House, Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, St. James Palace, Kensington Palace. Next there is an overview map of the entire Memorial Walk, followed by more detailed maps preceding each chapter about Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Green Park, and St. James Park, with references to the statues, flora, and fauna you will find along the route. It's all the better if you think you will never get to London, for at least it will give you the sensation that you have been there too. One word of warning: unless you already walk several miles each day, you should not consider doing this walk in one day, since the book says it is seven miles long. I can attest from having spent a day in 1989 walking extensively through all four parks that they are a lot of territory to cover. You can get it from The Royal Parks site for 9.95 pounds plus shipping, and it was also available at the gift shop at Kensington Palace when I visited there in 2002.

One of the first scholarly books about Princess Diana comes from Australia--Planet Diana: Cultural Studies and Global Mourning, which is a collection of essays which were given at an academic conference two months after her death. The book is frequently cited in any reputable scholarly journal articles published about Diana. The current price is $22 Australian dollars.   You can use the e-mail address on the publication page to order it from the research center that created it, and they do take credit cards. One of its essays, "Vanishing Point"can be read online.

Playwright Laurel Haines has written a "jokey, monologue-driven" play, The Dianalogues, which was performed in fall 2002 in Arizona, and the script is included in Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2003, edited by D. L. Lepidus, which was published by Smith and Kraus in April 2004. This book is still available from Barnes and Noble for $19.95.

English Rose Press is the home page of Christine Toomey, a psychic who has channeled messages from Diana and published In Her Own Words: The After Death Journal of Princess Diana. You can read the messages, read excerpts from and buy the book, listen to and purchase a CD of music composed to go with the book, and book spiritual readings with Ms. Toomey.

Copies of the Christie's auction catalog are cheapest on ebay, where copies of the paperback catalog can be owned for $200-$300, though the hardcover copies are will go for at least twice as much because there were only 5,000 of them printed.
But that's still a bargain compared to what you would pay from a rare book dealer for either item: a comparison of
twenty-eight copies available at AddAll finds that the softcover runs from $225.00-$658.70, while the two hardcover editions
are priced at $1,469.16 and $1,503.58.  

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denisem4@mail2princess.com                                     Copyright 1999-2006
Officially launched July 1, 1999                                  Updated July 18, 2006