10 Years Later, We're Still Talking about Princess Di?

With over 37 million copies sold, Candle In The Wind 1997 is, 10 years after it was recorded, still the best selling single of all time. Think about that for a minute. A recording of a pre-existing Elton John song retrofitted to eulogize a woman who was rich enough to buy all those singles herself. Though the proceeds went to charity, the mind still boggles.

August 31 will mark 10 years since the death of Diana Spencer, one-time Princess of Wales and enduring Queen of all tabloid covers. You likely recall exactly the hysteria that came in the wake of Diana's accidental end in a car in Paris -- a surge of unchecked grief that flooded into the streets of Britain and beyond. If you lived in London at the time, you probably gawked at the truly awesome thicket of bouquets outside Buckingham Palace, marveled at the open weeping on the streets during her funeral, and had your head done in by the sheer inescapability of fascination with the "People's Princess" as Tony Blair memorably dubbed her.

It was all anyone talked about for weeks, and the media went on as if the world might stop spinning without Diana's charitable endeavors and fashionable frocks.

It was madness. A madness that appears to be resurging.

Tina's princess

Last year's movie The Queen got the ball rolling. Fifteen million people in 140 countries watched the "Concert for Diana" at Wembley Stadium this past July, a "celebration" of Diana's life featuring performers as disparate as P. Diddy, Kanye West, Tom Jones and Duran Duran. In the wake of that, there's been a revival of interest in Dianaphenelia -- Larry King Live spent 15 minutes interviewing the makers of her wedding dress just two weeks ago; a German paper called Bild recently commissioned a portraiture contest to coincide with her death, and Christie's auction house recently announced they would be auctioning off more of Diana's seemingly limitless supply of dresses this month.

Of course, People magazine still sees sales spike when they put the late princess on the cover, as do countless U.K. tabs and magazines. The sheer volume of books posthumously written about her is astounding. From lizard septuagenarian talk-show host Larry King, to Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, there are few who knew her who didn't make a profit off her after she slammed into a concrete wall going full speed in a Mercedes through the Paris night. The latest to get in on the act is Tina Brown -- media queen, former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair and (somewhat disastrously) the New Yorker.

The Diana Chronicles, Brown's first book, is of interest in as much for its pervasiveness as it is its content. The recipient of breathless reviews in respected publications such as the Times of both London and New York, and a particularly stunning two-page gush in the New Yorker, Brown's exceedingly positive reviews, combined with her media omnipotence (one shudders at the number of journalists who owe her favours), has made her debut book the number one beach read of 2007, topping bestseller lists around the world.

As Brown was a personal friend to Diana, this is as many have said the Diana book. But what's most shocking here is how much we already know. Though Brown is a gifted writer with unprecedented access, everything here is old news. Diana's lonely, motherless adolescence. Her early 20s as Sloane-dreamer, investing time in nothing put finding a male savior. Her transformation from shy girl to public princess. Her charity work. Her and her husband's infidelities. Her eating disorder. Her feud with the royal establishment. Her simultaneous loathing and courting of the paparazzi that would eventually kill her. It's all here in marvelous detail, but before cracking page one, there's little we didn't already know about this woman. Her premature death seems to have made her a figure of endless intrigue, yet there are few women more public.