She can’t remember the last time she read something for pleasure, something she didn’t have to. She decides to go inside-much to the shock of the librarian and the one other person in the library-and while she’s there, she might as well pick out a book.
One day when her dogs are being unruly, Queen Elizabeth leaves the grounds of Buckingham Palace to find that there’s a mobile library just outside. I say the book is gentle, but a speech the Queen makes at the end to a group of her former advisors lays bare the thin veneer of civilization concealing life in a world full of murderous political actors.īoy, this novella was utterly charming and delightful! Her Majesty discovers emotional and intellectual worlds she'd had no access to before she started reading. Of course, the story also says a lot about the lives and thoughts of readers. When she starts asking people what they're reading, it only confuses them. Much of the Queen's duty involves banal small talk with her subjects and even heads of state. It's a gently funny book by Alan Bennett, but it says so much about the strange life of a modern monarch-full of events, but rather empty of normal human interaction. Her new interest threatens to upset the applecart of her reign, and people in the government, alarmed, conspire to stop her reading. The 120-page novella tells the story of a fictional version of Queen Elizabeth, who accidentally becomes an avid reader. 'Are you suggesting one rations one's reading?' 'I see no harm in reading in itself, ma'am. “What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.” -Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader
You go to a book to have your convictions corroborated. “But then books, as I'm sure you know, seldom prompt a course of action.īooks generally just confirm you in what you have, perhaps unwittingly, decided to do already. 'At the risk of sounding like a piece of steak “'Books are wonderful, aren't they?' she said to the vice-chancellor, who concurred. That's always been my phi-losophy.” -Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader Books, bread and butter, mashed potato - one finishes what's on one's plate. What a gem! Delightful, humorous, and entertaining in a Royal and bookish way.
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