Queen elizabeth ii (Penguin Books)

From Sarah Bradford, the best-selling author of "George VI", "Elizabeth" and "Diana", the definitive biography of Queen Elizabeth II, to tie in with the Diamond Jubilee. Elizabeth II has lived through the Abdication, the Blitz and World War Two, the sex and spy scandals of the swinging sixties, the Cold War and the nuclear threat and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

She has known 11 US Presidents including JFK and Ronald Reagan, and other world leaders like President Mandela and Pope John XXII. Her Prime Ministers have ranged from Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher to David Cameron, the last only ten years older than her grandson.

Her own family experiences, a mixture of happiness and crisis, weddings and divorces, and, in the case of Diana, violent death, have been lived in the glare of tabloid headlines. More than 2 billion people watched the wedding of her grandson Prince William to Catherine Middleton in 2010 shortly before she made the first State Visit to Ireland aby a British monarch for 100 years.Our world has changed more in her lifetime than in any of her predecessors': the Queen has remained a calm presence at the centre, earning the respect of monarchists and republicans.

How has she done it? "Bradford has a real grasp of history and the ability to make it spark into new life". ("Sunday Telegraph"). "Bradford's forte, ever since she was a history-mad girl, is thinking herself into other lives".

("Daily Telegraph"). Sarah Bradford is a historian and biographer. Her books include "Cesare Borgia" (1976), "Disraeli" (1982), winner of the "New York Times" Book of the Year, "Princess Grace" (1984), "Sacherevell Sitwell" (1993), "Elizabeth: A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen" (1996), "America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis" (2000), "Lucrezia Borgia" (2005) and "Diana" (2007).

She frequently appears on television as an authority on her biographical subjects and as a commentator on notable royal events. She is currently working on a full scale biography of Queen Victoria. She lives in London.