Staff Pick
The queen of England stumbles across a mobile library one day while walking her dogs and feels obligated to check out a book. She reads it and realizes she wants to read another, and another. Soon, the queen doesn't want to go to dinners or openings or luncheons; she just wants to read. A completely delightful tale, this tiny story speaks to all of us who are in love with reading. Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
From one of England's most celebrated writers, the author of the award-winning The History Boys, a funny and superbly observed novella about the Queen of England and the subversive power of reading
When her corgis stray into a mobile library parked near Buckingham Palace, the Queen feels duty-bound to borrow a book. Discovering the joy of reading widely (from J. R. Ackerley, Jean Genet, and Ivy Compton-Burnett to the classics) and intelligently, she finds that her view of the world changes dramatically. Abetted in her newfound obsession by Norman, a young man from the royal kitchens, the Queen comes to question the prescribed order of the world and loses patience with the routines of her role as monarch. Her new passion for reading initially alarms the palace staff and soon leads to surprising and very funny consequences for the country at large.
Longlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and An Economist Book of the Year, The Uncommon Reader is a novella that celebrates the pleasure of reading. What if Queen Elizabeth at the age of 70-something were suddenly to become a voracious reader? What if she were to become an avid fan of Proust and Balzac, Turgenev and Trollope and Hardy? And what if reading were to lead her, in turn, to becoming a writer? Mr. Bennett's musings on these matters have produced a delightful little book that unfolds into a witty meditation on the subversive pleasures of reading
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"Bennett has fun with the proper behavior and protocol at the palace....There are lessons packed in here, but Bennett doesn't wallop readers with them. It's a fun little book." Publishers Weekly
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"Hilarious and pointed....[A] lovely lesson in the redemptive and subversive power of reading and how one book can lead to another and another and another....But most of all, The Uncommon Reader is a lot of fun to read." USA Today
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"Clever and entertaining....The Uncommon Reader is a celebration of both reading and its counterpart, independent thinking." Los Angeles Times
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"Bennett poses a delicious and very funny what-if....Mr. Bennett has written a captivating fairy tale...a tale that showcases its author's customary èlan and keen but humane wit." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
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The Uncommon Reader takes us into those blended moods in which we don't know what to think....Bennett's queen, wonderfully, alights on books that make no sense at all and play with one's sense of possibility." Pico Iyer, The New York Review of Books
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The Uncommon Reader, [Bennett's] new novella, is a kind of palace fairy tale for grown-ups. Once again he tells a story about an eccentric old lady, a character type he seems to enjoy....This time, his odd, isolated heroine is the queen of England. The story of her budding love affair with literature blends the comic and the poignant so smoothly it can only be by Bennett." Jeremy McCarter, The New York Times Book Review
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"The delights of Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader begin with its title, a gentle but deft play on words, and flow forth in easeful perfection for the 120 pages that follow. (The infallible Mr. Bennett is the Brit responsible for such wonderful imports as Beyond the Fringe, Talking Heads and The History Boys.) The Uncommon Reader is quite lovely in ambition: a little cameo that, if you look closely, is about a very public woman waking up, late in life, to the fact that she has seen everything but the world." Stephen Metcalf, The New York Observer
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"In this charming novella Alan Bennett imagines what might occur if the sovereign of England, Queen Elizabeth herself, were suddenly to develop a ravenous passion for books. What might in less capable hands result in a labored exercise or an embarrassing instance of literary lèse-majesté here becomes a delicious light comedy, as well as a meditation on the power of print....You can finish The Uncommon Reader in an hour or two, but it is charming enough and wise enough that you will almost certainly want to keep it around for rereading — unless you decide to share it with friends. Either way, this little book offers what English readers would call very good value for money." Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
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"The conceit offered here by Mr. Bennett, the beloved British author and dramatist, is that a woman of power can find and love the power in books. It is a simple equation and one that yields deep rewards. In what is a surprising and surprisingly touching novella, Mr. Bennett shows us why books matter to the queen, his 'uncommon reader' and why they matter so much to the rest of us....By the time the book reaches its hilarious and stunning conclusion, which I wont reveal here, a reader leaves wishing for more." Carol Herman, The Washington Times
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"What one wouldn't give to be a fly within Buckingham Palace walls. Only then could one witness the royal reaction to The Uncommon Reader, Alan Bennett's deliciously funny fantasia about Queen Elizabeth." Kerry Fried, Newsday
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"[Bennett] dispenses his observations on the purpose of reading...with the light hand of true authority." The Atlantic Monthly
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"Bennett has crafted a novella, of which the only complaint is that one wishes there were more, more, more of this charming, genteel, beguiling (and in one passage, gloriously bawdy) story." Greg Robertson, Woman's Day
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"Bennett's absorption with royalty in works like A Question of Attribution and The Madness of King George III has sometimes seemed more cozy than critical, as if he were anxious to join the very establishment he purports to mock. Subtler than either of these in its playfulness, The Uncommon Reader improves delightfully on an otherwise depressing reality, while slyly arraigning the ambiguous British romance with the monarchy and its current avatar." Jonathan Keates, The Times Literary Supplement (London)
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"A royal fable celebrating the transformative properties (and a few of the unsettling consequences) of reading as an obsession." Kirkus Reviews
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"British screenwriter, playwright, and novelist Bennett, author of the Tony Award-winning play The History Boys, has written a wry and unusual story about the subversive potential of reading." Christina Bauer, Library Journal
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“One of the greatest living English writers.”—David Thomson, The Nation
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“There is probably no other distinguished English man of letters more instantly likable than Bennett.” — Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World
About the Author
Alan Bennett has been one of England's leading dramatists since the success of Beyond the Fringe in the 1960s. His work includes the Talking Heads television series, and the stage plays Forty Years On, The Lady in the Van, A Question of Attribution, and The Madness of King George III. His most recent play, The History Boys, now a major motion picture, won six Tony Awards, including best play, in 2006. In the same year his memoir, Untold Stories, was a number-one bestseller in the United Kingdom.