hogglestock

I stumbled across Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader while browsing the fiction section of the lovely but run down Mt. Pleasant Library here in DC. A novella of 120 pages it only took me about an hour to ready this little lovely. The story imagines the current Queen of England chasing after her corgis as they climb into a mobile library parked near Windsor Castle. Once inside to retrieve the dogs she feels obligated to check out a book. The result is that she ends up actually reading the it and going back for others. After a lifetime of meeting and knighting famous authors of all kinds, HM finds herself actually reading books for the first time in her life. For anyone who loves reading and/or is a bit of an Anglophile this book is a must. I hate to sound cliche or trite but this book really is a delightful romp. I wish it could have gone on forever.