Queen Camilla loves a book. Almost any book will do. ‘There’s something so tactile about a book,’ she says. ‘I like the smell of the pages when you open the cover. I like turning the pages and folding down a corner ready for next time…’
The Queen, 78, has loved books for as long as she can remember. She says her father, Bruce Shand, inspired this lifelong passion: ‘He read to us as children. He chose the books, and we listened. He was probably the best-read man I’ve come across anywhere. He devoured books.’
Bruce Shand was a soldier. His father was a writer, about architecture, food and wine. His father was another writer, who, incidentally, was briefly and secretly engaged to Constance Lloyd, who went on to marry Oscar Wilde. This is a family with literary leanings. Queen Camilla’s late brother, Mark, was a conservationist and travel writer. Her sister, Annabel, is another voracious reader. The Queen’s son, Tom, is a food writer.
A few years ago, when she was still Duchess of Cornwall, Queen Camilla lent me a copy of her father’s war memoirs, Previous Engagements. ‘Military history isn’t really my forte,’ I said. ‘I think you’ll like this,’ she said, smiling. I did. (And so did my wife, who really isn’t into military history.) The book is short, witty, self-deprecating and beautifully written and observed. I must return it to Her Majesty sometime. (I really must. I see the copy she lent me was the one her father presented to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 1991.)
Queen Camilla likes to share her love of books. That’s how her Reading Room came about. Five years ago, during the Covid lockdown, she decided to launch her own online book club on Instagram, simply recommending books she had enjoyed in the hope that others might enjoy them too. She began with Charlie Mackesy and his wonderfully illustrated The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. Since then, she has offered 16 selections of personal favourites (four at a time, classics as well as new books) and invited others to become guest curators choosing and recommending books of particular genres.
The Reading Room took off from the start. The Queen remembers: ‘I had letters from all over the world when I put out my original reading list saying “Oo, I read A Gentleman in Moscow [by Amor Towles]”, or “Goodness me, I haven’t read The Queen’s Necklace [by Alexandre Dumas] for years and years”, and “Have you read this? You might enjoy that.” It’s a lovely way of corresponding and getting to know people. It’s a lovely way of communicating.’
‘To me,’ says Queen Camilla, ‘reading is a great adventure. I have loved it since I was very small’
The popularity of the book club grew and grew, and it now reaches more than 12 million people in 183 countries. In 2023, The Queen’s Reading Room became a charity, and I came on board as one of the trustees. Our mission is simply to spread the joy of reading.
We know it’s worthwhile because we are doing the research. Our first study using brain scans and skin conductance tests found that just five minutes of reading fiction both reduces stress by nearly 20 per cent and improves the brain’s capacity to manage stress, while also boosting concentration and reducing feelings of loneliness. Because the Queen, at first hand, has seen the helpful impact that reading can have on women who have survived abuse, we are doing practical work providing, for example, books in shelters run by charities such as St Mungo’s.
Only half of adults in the UK read a book in a year. We want to change that – not just because reading is ‘good for you’ (though it is), but chiefly because reading is a joy. ‘To me,’ says Queen Camilla, ‘reading is a great adventure. I have loved it since I was very small and I would love everybody else to enjoy it as much as I do. You can escape, and you can travel, and you can laugh and you can cry. Every type of emotion humans experience is in a book.’ Which is why she hopes you will enjoy the six she has selected for The Spectator this Christmas.
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