The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett

I randomly picked this book up at the library and for some reason I felt like I had to read it.   I am so glad that I found it and read it.  This is a super quick read about a Queen who picks up reading after she stumbles upon a mobile library at the palace.  While at the mobile library she meets Norman who is a currently working in the kitchen, but she recruits him to help develop her reading.   Reading becomes her great passion and she is constantly with a book.  She really begins to branch out with her reading, which scares the Queen's staff.

The surrounding staff and Queen's advisers begin to worry that the reading is effecting her as Queen.  The analogies used of why reading is so dangerous for someone in her position are amazing.  The Queen is expected to be everything to everyone, but now allowed to express her actual own opinion.  She is basically just a face in a position versus an actual person with authority.  It shows the issues that the Queen is personally facing and it feels like this is something the reading is making her want to confront.

The Queen eventually decides to begin writing down random thoughts from books along with her own opinions.  It shows the reader the transition between being a reader and a writer.  It also states how writers can use personal knowledge to create books.  I love the way the book shows the transition of reader to writer and what sparked the Queen to make the change.

As my journey of reading and blogging expands this is the perfect read.  It shows the importance of books in society to keep people entertained and learn at the same time.  I suggest reading this when you need inspiration to keep reading because you are not going to want to put this down! 

Favorite Quotes:
"'Oh, to the end.  Once I start a book I finish it.  That was the way one was brought up.  Books, bread and butter, mashed potato -- one finishes what's on one's plate.  That's always been my philosophy.'"

"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."

My rating 5/5

Author website None, Wikipedia

Publisher Farrar, Stratus & Giroux

ISBN 9780374280963

Length 120

Format hardback