The Uncommon Reader by Alan BennettPublisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2007
Hardcover 120 pages
"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". (21)
Never has a truer sentence ever been spoken. For reading is like an endless journey where the end of one path only leads to another land waiting to be discovered. Though from this brief quotation one shouldn't think that this little book is a deep and philosophical look on reading. What this novella is: it is beautifully written, wonderfully imaginative and a great read for a lazy afternoon.
The premise of the story is that late in her life, Queen Elizabeth II happens upon a mobile library on the palace grounds. Not wanting to offend the mobile librarian, she takes a random book off the shelf. She reads the book, and though she found it a bit dull, it interested her enough to go back the next day to try another. Much to the chagrin of the royal staff and members of parliament, soon the affairs of state have taken a backseat to her passion for reading and she finds for the first time in her life that the world could be different from the constant ceremony and pomp.
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