ROYAL TREATMENT

The unrivalled omnipresence of Queen Elizabeth IL.

- REBECCA MEAD

For any author, pre-publication attention is an infinitely precious commodity. So it must have been with great delight that Craig Brown, the British satirist, learned last month that his book "Q:A Voyage Around the Queen" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) had come to the attention of that well-known influencer Donald Trump. The former President makes a brief appearance, in a chapter dedicated to the late Queen Elizabeth's encounters with controversial foreign leaders. (Others mentioned include Bashar al-Assad, Idi Amin, and Vladimir Putin.) The monarch told a guest that she'd found Trump "very rude," Brown writes. "She particularly disliked the way he couldn't stop looking over her shoulder, as though in search of others more interesting."When asked about the characterization, which was excerpted in the Daily Mail, Trump obligingly delivered the money quote: "I think it's a shame that a sleazebag can write an article that's totally false.... I know nothing about him. I have no idea who he is." Brown's publisher must already be redesigning the dust jacket to incorporate the accolade.