If you’ve ever found yourself in a souvenir shop on Oxford Street, stifling a laugh at a corgi-shaped teapot, you’ve already tapped into the strange magic of the monarchy. They’re not just a constitutional institution; they’re characters in the nation’s longest, most expensive soap opera. As a non-monarchist, this is precisely how I love them, as folklore, a living fairy tale full of eccentric cousins and glittering carriages. And nobody understands this better, it turns out, than the Italians. Here comes The Queen in Pocket. Guida pop, dissacrante e definitiva su Elisabetta II by Eva Grippa. Currently only available in Italian from publisher De Agostini, this pocket-sized pop biography (192 pages, roughly €21) was released to mark the centenary of Queen Elizabeth II’s birth. It is, and I say this with total affection, the perfect way to enjoy the Royal Family without pledging allegiance to a single thing.
A Pop-Art approach, not a stuffy biography
The book’s look immediately sets the tone. Illustrator Ivan Canu has wrapped it in a delicious pop-art cover channelling Andy Warhol, our Rainbow Queen reimagined as a technicolour screen print. Inside, the visual flair continues, making it as much a coffee-table objet d’art as a read. It’s a world away from the leather-bound, respectful tomes of yesteryear.
A few years ago at a book festival on the Tuscan hills village called Bagno Vignoni I met Eva Grippa, a respected journalist for La Repubblica (a colleague of our favourite crime capers Enrico Franceschini) and a self-described royal watcher “allergic to gossip”. Back then she presented one historical book about the queen and another one about Kate Middleton.
While I found those books too dense for my liking, Eva has structured this pop book brilliantly for busy mums. You won’t find 300 pages of dense chronological text. Instead, you get exactly 100 short, sharp anecdotes: one for each year since the Queen’s birth, grouped into 20 overarching themes. This isn’t a book you read cover to cover; it’s one you flip open while the pasta boils, or dip into during those ten stolen minutes of peace in the school pick-up line.
From “Lilibeth” to “Top Lady”: The folklore unpacked
The word the Italians use is dissacrante, which means irreverent, but with a twinkle, not a snarl. Grippa doesn’t deify the Queen. She reveals her as a surprisingly human, humorous, and unconventional figure. The book throws open the palace doors (and the wardrobes) to reveal a very different sovereign.
This is the Elizabeth who was a skilled wartime mechanic and lifeguard, a passionate photographer and jockey. It unpacks the eccentric habits, the “unregal scandals”, the irresistible quotes, the secret passions, alliances, and nemeses. It traces the journey from the dreamy but never naive little “Lilibeth” to the adored wife and fearsome “Top Lady”. For a Republican like me, this is the good stuff: the anthropological detail, the character study of a woman who became a universal legend simply by being so utterly, uniquely herself.
Perfect for mums who love a light read with style
The bite-sized format is a huge selling point for anyone with a fragmented attention span (thank you, children). The writing is light and witty, avoiding the dryness of a historical textbook while still being grounded in Grippa’s rigorous journalistic research. It’s a light read about customs and a way of life that feels ever so slightly alien, which is, of course, its charm.
The one flaw? We can’t read it properly here yet
The only real heartbreak is the language barrier (although not for me). Published in March 2026 by De Agostini, The Queen in Pocket is, as of now, firmly aimed at the Italian market (ASIN B0G3YVGPPW, ISBN-13 979-1221222845). For those of us who might have let our Italian get a bit rusty, the full, delicious detail remains just out of reach.
This book needs an English translation. It deserves a spot on the bedside tables and in the beach bags of London mums who appreciate the monarchy as the brilliant, bizarre, and deeply human piece of folklore that it is. Until a UK publisher gets the memo, a copy of this Italian edition makes a wonderfully chic gift and the most stylish reason yet to download Duolingo. Fun, fabulous, and just disrespectful enough, just perfect.
God Save the Queen and pass the Spaghetti.
Monica Costa founded London Mums in September 2006 after her son Diego’s birth together with a group of mothers who felt the need of meeting up regularly to share the challenges and joys of motherhood in metropolitan and multicultural London. London Mums is the FREE and independent peer support group for mums and mumpreneurs based in London https://www.londonmumsmagazine.com and you can connect on Twitter @londonmums
