Charles Spencer's memoir "Swan Song" offers a raw portrait of Princess Diana, blending childhood memories with the planning of her 1997 funeral. Spencer, three years younger, recalls Diana's bravery — killing a massive conger eel with a penknife during a Scottish lobster-potting trip — and her fierce protectiveness. He details her outrage at their father's secret 1976 marriage to Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, which prompted Diana to slap him, declaring, "That's for the pain you're causing us all."

The paparazzi hounded Diana early; at 19, she arrived at Eton for lunch trailed by a dozen cars and a motorbike, photographers converging "like hyenas closing in on a gazelle." Prince Charles emerges as callous: he pinched Diana's waist calling her "a bit chubby" and confessed the day before their wedding he wasn't in love with her. He later screamed at Spencer to silence Diana's "infernal racket" at Kensington Palace. After their father's 1992 death, Charles resented his parents, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, complaining at 43 they treated him "like a child."

Spencer also recounts Diana shoving Raine down a staircase at Althorp after Raine insulted their mother, Frances Shand Kydd, and called Diana "stupid." The book aims to "tell the truth about Diana from her brother's perspective," cementing her legacy as a warrior against cruelty.