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Afternoons with lecturer Michael King

  • Books on the Hill 1 Holywell Hill St Albans, England, AL1 1ER United Kingdom (map)

We are delighted to announce our next lecture will explore The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett.

Tea and coffee will be provided throughout the session.

To book your place please click here.

About the book~

Alan Bennett's classic story about Queen Elizabeth IIWhat would happen if the Queen became a reader of taste and discernment rather than of Dick Francis? The answer is a perfect story. The Uncommon Reader is none other than HM the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely (JR Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett and the classics) and intelligently.

Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people like the oleaginous prime minister and his repellent advisers. She comes to question the prescribed order of the world and loses patience with much that she has to do. In short, her reading is subversive.

The consequence is, of course, surprising, mildly shocking and very funny.

Earlier Event: March 17
March Book Club