Alan Bennett’s charming and wryly hilarious celebration of the pleasures and powers of reading is a flawlessly pitched, perfectly proportioned novella. Its heroine is the Queen of England, who one day finds herself, while chasing an errant Corgi, wandering into the mobile library parked outside of Buckingham Palace. After exchanging pleasantries with the librarian and a palace kitchen employee named Norman, she borrows a book by Ivy Compton-Burnett. “She’s not a popular author, ma’am,” says the librarian. “Why, I wonder?” muses the queen. “I made her a dame.” Uncommonly funny, Bennett's little fable offers pleasures no booklover should forego.
This book was a suggestion from a fellow Book Club reader and is a great complement to The Library Book, the love letter to books and reading. I truly enjoyed it. It is a great read and shows a deep love for books and for the people who love them. The subtle humor is so very current and on point.
My favorite quote is:
"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."
I have seldom read a funnier, and more compelling account, of the power of books and good reading.
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