Spare by Prince Harry: The Fable Reading Guide
Jan 20 2023
Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, made his literary debut this year. You can sample his memoir "Spare" for free on Fable, getting the royal son's story in his own words. Prince Harry writes with raw, unflinching honesty about his royal life. Telling his own story for the first time, Harry shares insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.
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Book reviews for Spare
As readers obsess about Prince Harry's memoir, a full spectrum of reviews has surfaced.Fable reviewers are already weighing in on the new book, and the memoir has a 3.5 star rating on Fable at the moment. Log into the Fable app to post your own review!“There's a lot of insane privilege expressed in this book, even more cringe thoughts and unhinged stories... but... I think Harry is trying to do better and is aware of his problems so I didn't come out of this disliking him. Completely the opposite actually. A lot of it is also about grief and ongoing trauma and how the British press are the actual scum so that makes it a really interesting read.”
-- milica's Fable review"At once emotional and embittered, the royal memoir is mired in a paradox: drawing endless attention in an effort to renounce fame."
-- New York Times"Spare' is an unprecedented exposure of the Royal Family from the most deeply embedded of informants. The Prince in exile does not hesitate to detail the pettiness, the vanity, and the inglorious urge toward self-preservation of those who are now the monarchy’s highest-ranking representatives."-- New Yorker"Like Harry, the book is good-natured, rancorous, humorous, self-righteous, self-deprecating, long-winded. And every so often, bewildering."
-- Washington PostPrince Harry Spare Quotes
Fable book clubs make it easy to highlight and share your favorite quotes. We've collected a few eye-popping quotes from the royal memoir.“Open the wrong door and you might burst in on Pa while his valet was helping him dress ... Worse, you might blunder in as he was doing his headstands. Prescribed by his physio, these exercises were the only effective remedy for the constant pain in Pa’s neck and back.”
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past. ... When I discovered that quotation not long ago on BrainyQuote.com, I was thunderstruck. I thought, Who the fook is Faulkner? And how’s he related to us Windsors?”
“The papers published florid stories about the moment I realized Willy and Kate were well matched, the moment I appreciated the depth of their love and thus decided to gift Willy the ring I’d inherited from Mummy, the legendary sapphire, ... A tender moment between brothers, a bonding moment for all three of us, and absolute rubbish: none of it ever happened. I never gave Willy that ring because it wasn’t mine to give. He had already had it. He’d asked for it after Mummy died, and I’d been more than happy to let it go.”
"Teddy went everywhere with Pa. It was a pitiful object, with broken arms and dangly threads, holes patched up here and there. It looked, I imagined, like Pa might have after the bullies had finished with him. Teddy expressed eloquently, better than Pa ever could, the essential loneliness of his childhood.”
“I reached for my father's hand, for comfort, then cursed myself, because that gesture set off an explosion of clicks,” he said. “I’d given them exactly what they wanted. Emotion. Drama. Pain.”
"I’d wear a disguise: low baseball cap, loose coat. I’d run along the aisles at warp speed, grabbing the salmon fillets I liked, the brand of yogurt I liked. (I’d memorized a map of the store.) Plus a few Granny Smith apples and bananas. And, of course, some crisps. Then I’d sprint to the checkout.”
Who was the ghostwriter for Spare?
The novelist J. R. Moehringer was hired as the co-writer for Prince Harry's book. Moehringer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and a former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. Moehringer is the author of two books you can sample on Fable: the novel "Sutton," the memoir "The Tender Bar." He's also the ghostwriter on two other beloved memoirs: "Open" by Andre Agassi and "Shoe Dog" by Phil Knight.According to Rebecca Mead in The New Yorker, his writing is instrumental to making the story come alive for readers. She wrote:"Harry, or his publishing house—which paid a reported twenty-million-dollar advance for the book—could not have chosen better. Moehringer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter turned memoirist and novelist ... Moehringer has fashioned the Duke of Sussex’s life story into a tight three-act drama, consisting of his occasionally wayward youth; his decade of military service, which included two tours of duty in Afghanistan; and his relationship with Meghan."
Keep reading on Fable!
Are you going to read "Spare?" Don't forget to post a review on Fable. You can also add the book to a list.You can sample our ever-growing collection of Folios, exceptional book recommendations from some of the world's great tastemakers. Each Folio covers a critical theme, and some of our Folio curators include LeVar Burton, Paulo Coelho, Wolfgang Puck, and Jasmine Guillory. Discover great book recommendations!And don't forget, Fable has plenty of free books in every genre!