Browse the royal shelves with the Queen’s Reading Room

It’s been over a year since the coronation and I’m still not used to the phrase “the Queen” referring to Camilla Parker Bowles, the wife of King Charles III, rather than the late Queen Elizabeth II. So there is already something surreal in listening to The Queen’s Reading Room. But this is Camilla’s book club – and, before you get too excited, Her Majesty doesn’t interview the authors herself, either. Rather, it’s that she gave her royal blessing to the venture, as part of the charity she created to “foster a lifelong love of literature in adults and children and connect more people to that special magic that can only be found in the leaves of a book.

The privilege of presenting the show goes to the association’s general director, Vicki Perrin. So it’s fair to ask: what makes this reading room “the Queen” in the first place? At the start of each episode, before introducing the day’s guest author, we are invited to “take a brief detour through Her Majesty the Queen’s reading room”, where “in front of a crackling fire” she discusses her own literary favorites . And yes, there are crackling fire sound effects. What’s often not there is a connection between the book Camilla graciously chooses to highlight and the author guest on the podcast. Crime writer Peter James is beloved enough in the royal household for the Queen to mention him, but he has been an anomaly so far. Her Majesty has nothing to say about the works of fantasy superstar Neil Gaiman, and the episode with Mel Giedroyc begins with a treatise on Dickens versus Tolstoy. Forgive me if I don’t see the link.

Maybe I’m being unfair. There’s nothing wrong with (another) podcast inviting top authors to talk about the delights of their own bookshelves. It’s a gentle and soothing listen. No controversy here, just famous personalities from the book world who speak literary about the joys of reading. If this encourages British non-bibliophiles to visit the library, who could object? As a bonus, I suspect desperate insomniacs will find The Queen’s Reading Room inadvertently works as a sleeping pill.

The Queen’s Reading Room
Spotify/Apple Podcasts

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