Publish Date: 2019
Join Her Majesty's Book Club
Her Majesty The Queen picks four favourite books, in four seasons each year. Join us, as we meet the authors and explore these extraordinary stories.
Season 15
Mapp and Lucia
By E. F. Benson
Publish Date: 1931
Subtly brilliant comedy of social rivalry between the wars. Emmeline Lucas (known universally to her friends as Lucia) is an arch-snob of the highest order. In Miss Elizabeth Mapp of Mallards Lucia meets her match. Ostensibly the most civil and…
Horse
By Geraldine Brooks
Publish Date: 2022
Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has…
Season 14
April 2024 - June 2024
Season 14 takes us to the Tuscan hills to learn about the history of post-war Florence through an extraordinary friendship in Sarah Winman's Still Life; to Ireland at the turn of the twentieth century to accompany Major Yeates through a series of hilarious adventures in Somerville and Ross' Some Experiences of an Irish R. M.; to a cherry orchard in Northern Michigan to reflect on a mother's life as told to her three young daughters in Ann Patchett's Tom Lake; and finally to Korea and Japan to follow a family saga unfolding through generations in Min Jin Lee's Pachinko.
Pachinko
By Min Jin Lee
Publish Date: 2017
Yeongdo, Korea 1911. In a small fishing village on the banks of the East Sea, a club-footed, cleft-lipped man marries a fifteen-year-old girl. The couple have one child, their beloved daughter Sunja. When Sunja falls pregnant by a married yakuza,…
Some Experiences of an Irish R. M.
By Edith Somerville & Martin Ross
Publish Date: 1899
Some Experiences of an Irish R.M. was the first in a trilogy of books that described the misadventures of Major Yeates, an Anglo Irish countryside magistrate who leaves the British army and moves to Ireland with his new English wife,…
Tom Lake
By Ann Patchett
Publish Date: 2023
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a…
Still Life
By Sarah Winman
Publish Date: 2021 Awards: 2021 InWords Literary Award
1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier, Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy.…
Season 13
January 2024 - March 2024
Season 13 delves into a story of political intrigue in Michael Dobbs' thriller The Lords' Day; the haunting power of the past in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca; the epic saga of a family's undoing and reconstruction in postcolonial Africa in Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible; and the delightful adventures of the ever-charming Cassandra Mortmain and her family in Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle.
I Capture the Castle
By Dodie Smith
Publish Date: 1948
Cassandra Mortmain lives with her bohemian and impoverished family in a crumbling castle in the middle of nowhere. Her journal records her life with her beautiful, bored sister, Rose, her fading glamorous stepmother, Topaz, her little brother Thomas and her…
Rebecca
By Daphne du Maurier
Publish Date: 1938
Working as a lady's companion, the orphaned heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life begins to look very bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she meets Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose sudden proposal of…
The Lords’ Day
By Michael Dobbs
Publish Date: 2007
The State Opening of Parliament. The most magnificent royal occasion of the year. The most powerful people in the land are gathering in one room, the House of Lords. And none of them know they are about to endure the…
The Poisonwood Bible
By Barbara Kingsolver
Recommended by: Miranda Cowley Heller & Bonnie Garmus
Publish Date: 1998
The story of a family's tragic undoing and efforts to rebuild what's been lost, The Poisonwood Bible is an epic novel full of suspense. Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist, decides to take his wife, four daughters and mission…
Season 12
October 2023 - December 2023
Season 12 of The Queen’s Reading Room is teaching us about the power of female friendship in Rachel Joyce's Miss Benson's Beetle; of one woman's intellect and creativity in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; of a young boy's love for animals in Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals; and of a terrible and destructive secret in Donna Tartt's The Secret History.
My Family and Other Animals
By Gerald Durrell
Publish Date: 1956
Ten-year-old Gerald doesn't know why his older brothers and sisters complain so much. With snakes in the bath and scorpions on the lunch table, the family home on the Greek island of Corfu is a bit like a zoo so…
Frankenstein
By Mary Shelley
Publish Date: 1818
One of the best-known Gothic novels, Frankenstein is both a haunting, uncanny novel about the dangers and temptations of scientific progress and an enduring investigation into what it means to be truly human. Obsessed by creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein…
Miss Benson’s Beetle
By Rachel Joyce
Publish Date: 2020 Awards: 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize
It is 1950. In a devastating moment of clarity, Margery Benson abandons her dead-end job and advertises for an assistant to accompany her on an expedition. She is going to travel to the other side of the world to search…
The Secret History
By Donna Tartt
Recommended by: Bonnie Garmus
Publish Date: 1992
Truly deserving of the accolade Modern Classic, Donna Tartt's cult bestseller The Secret History is a remarkable achievement - both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful. Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits…
Season 11
July 2023 - September 2023
Season 11 of The Queen’s Reading Room revealed to us the wonderful bonds within a group of women living in the American South in the 1960s in Sue Monk Kidd’s soul-stirring novel The Secret Life of Bees; the far-reaching consequences for the welfare of horses in Anna Sewell’s classic Black Beauty; the stories that lie behind Dickens’ masterpiece A Tale of Two Cities; and the enlightening and emotional account of an extraordinary life of bravery, resilience and grace told with disarming honesty in Lady Glenconner’s riveting memoir Lady in Waiting.
Lady in Waiting
By Lady Glenconner
Publish Date: 2019
The remarkable life of Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret who was also a Maid of Honour at the Queen’s Coronation. Anne Glenconner reveals her life of drama, tragedy and courage, with the wonderful wit and extraordinary resilience which define…
A Tale of Two Cities
By Charles Dickens
Publish Date: 1859
Vividly interweaving epic historical drama with personal tragedy, Dickens's gripping novel depicts the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, as they become enmeshed through their…
Black Beauty
By Anna Sewell
Publish Date: 1877
Black Beauty is a handsome, sweet-tempered but strong-spirited young horse, used to galloping free in the fresh green meadows with his beloved mother, Duchess, and their kind master. But when his owners are forced to sell him, Black Beauty goes…
The Secret Life of Bees
By Sue Monk Kidd
Publish Date: 2002
Set in South Carolina during 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of a fourteen year old white girl, Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When…
Season 10
April 2023 - June 2023
Season 10 of The Queen’s Reading Room opened our eyes to the dazzling magic of Gabriel García Márquez’ Love in the Time of Cholera; the history of India and Partition in Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy; the heart-wrenching story of the search for a lost love in occupied France in Sebastian Faulks’ Charlotte Gray; and the inspiring story of a tenacious and brilliant woman scientist in the 1950s in Bonnie Garmus’ Lessons in Chemistry.
Lessons in Chemistry
By Bonnie Garmus
Publish Date: 2023
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very…
A Suitable Boy
By Vikram Seth
Publish Date: 1993
Awards: 1994 Commonwealth Writers Prize
At its core, A Suitable Boy is a love story: the tale of Lata – and her mother’s – attempts to find her a suitable husband, through love or through exacting maternal appraisal. At the same time, it is the…
Love in the Time of Cholera
By Gabriel García Márquez
Publish Date: 1985
Fifty-one years, nine months and four days have passed since Fermina Daza rebuffed hopeless romantic Florentino Ariza's impassioned advances and married Dr Juvenal Urbino instead. During that half-century, Flornetino has fallen into the arms of many delighted women, but has…
Charlotte Gray
By Sebastian Faulks
Recommended by: Joanna Quinn
Publish Date: 1998
It's 1942 and Charlotte Gray, a young Scottish woman, is embarking on a dangerous journey to Occupied France, officially to run an errand for British special operations, but unofficially to look for her missing lover, an English airman. When she…
Season 9
October 2022 – December 2022
Season 9 of The Queen’s Reading Room started a new year with a journey through time, from 13th century Carcassonne to unpick the secret of the true grail in Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth; to 1940s Paris in search of a Dior dress in Paul Gallico’s delightful Mrs Harris Goes To Paris; to the Raj for an epic romantic adventure caught in the clash between East and West in M. M. Kaye’s The Far Pavilions; to a dangerous and daring adventure in the depths of the cold North in Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle.
Great Circle
By Maggie Shipstead
Publish Date: 2021
Marian Graves is a daring aviator determined to be the first to fly around the world north-south over the poles. In 1950, near the end of her historic attempt, she vanishes in Antarctica. Hadley Baxter is a scandal-plagued movie star…
The Far Pavilions
By M. M. Kaye
Publish Date: 1978
This epic, sweeping romance tells the story of Ashton Pelham-Martyn, an English man brought up as a Hindu, and his undying love for Juli, an Indian princess. Inspired by Kaye’s childhood in India, her family’s experiences of military life and…
Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Paris
By Paul Gallico
Publish Date: 1958
Mrs Harris is a salt-of-the-earth London charlady who cheerfully cleans the houses of the rich. One day, when tidying Lady Dant's wardrobe, she comes across the most beautiful thing she has ever seen in her life - a Dior dress.…
Labyrinth
By Kate Mosse
Publish Date: 2005
Three secrets. Two women. One Grail ... July 1209: in Carcassonne a 17-year-old girl is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the true Grail. Although Alais cannot understand the strange words and…
Season 8
October 2022 - December 2022
Season 8 of The Queen’s Reading Room left us spellbound with the enchanting debut novel The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn, featuring the spirited Cristabel Seagrave and her siblings; the classic horror tale Dracula by Bram Stoker; the big-hearted story of little Liesel living with her foster parents in Nazi Germany in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief; and Elizabeth Gilbert’s sweeping descriptions of the glitz and glamour of the 1940s New York theatre scene in City of Girls.
City Of Girls
By Elizabeth Gilbert
New York, 1940. Vivian, a young girl exiled by her parents, arrives in the big city with her sewing machine. At the Lily Playhouse, a rather disreputable yet charming Manhattan revue theatre, she makes a new family and learns to…
The Book Thief
By Markus Zusak
Publish Date: 2006
A novel described as 'unsettling, life-affirming, triumphant and tragic', The Book Thief is set in Nazi Germany and tells the story of nine-year-old Liesel and her love for books, books which she steals wherever she can find them. But when…
Dracula
By Bram Stoker
Publish Date: 1897
A tale which has fascinated readers for over a century and filled them with terror, Dracula is a masterpiece of Gothic fiction narrated through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. The mysterious Count Dracula, a vampire from Transylvania who survives…
The Whalebone Theatre
By Joanna Quinn
Publish Date: 2022
Despite her adverse circumstances, young Cristabel Seagrave has big dreams for her life and is determined to write her own story. When a whale washes up on the Dorset shore, she plants her flag, and the inanimate carcass becomes the…
Season 7
July 2022 - September 2022
Season 7 of The Queen’s Reading Room featured four exceptional women writers, starting with one whose heroines must navigate the mannered world of English gentry, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; the exciting fervour of the Scottish Enlightenment in Sara Sheridan’s The Fair Botanists; the many facets of modern-day Britain in Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other; and 17th-century London, Venice and New England in Philippa Gregory’s second instalment of The Fairmile Series, Dark Tides.
Dark Tides
By Philippa Gregory
Publish Date: 2020
The second volume in the trilogy of The Fairmile Series, Dark Tides continues the sweeping saga of the Tidelands family. When two unexpected visitors show up at a shabby warehouse on the south side of the river Thames, Alinor…
Girl, Woman, Other
By Bernardine Evaristo
Publish Date: 2019 Awards: 2019 Booker Prize
‘A must-read about modern Britain and womanhood. This is an impressive, fierce novel about the lives of black British families, their struggles, pains, laughter, longings and loves. With a dazzling rhythm, Evaristo takes us on a journey of intergenerational stories,…
The Fair Botanists
By Sara Sheridan
Publish Date: 2021
It's the summer of 1822, and in Edinburgh botanists patiently await for the Agave Americana plant to flower in the newly-installed Botanic Garden. When newly widowed Elizabeth moves into the grand house bordering the Botanic Garden, she becomes interested…
Pride & Prejudice
By Jane Austen
Recommended by: Miranda Cowley Heller
Publish Date: 1813
While Mrs Bennet wishes nothing better for her daughters than the prospect of an advantageous marriage, her daughter Elizabeth thinks otherwise. When the wealthy and eligible bachelor Mr Bingley moves into the neighbourhood, he soon becomes attached to Elizabeth's…
Season 6
Jan 2022 – Feb 2022
Season 6 of The Queen’s Reading Room took us through the streets of Kabul to run kites in Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner; to Nazi-occupied Paris to discover a magnificent and tragically unfinished story in Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française; to Cape Cod to spend the summer in Miranda Cowley Heller’s The Paper Palace; and back in time to witness a horrible misunderstanding and its dire consequences in Ian McEwan’s Atonement.
Atonement
By Ian McEwan
Publish Date: 2007
It's the summer of 1935, and young Briony sees her older sister Cecilia plunge nearly naked into the fountain of their country house, while Robbie Turner, the housekeeper's son, is watching. From that moment, their lives will never be the…
The Paper Palace
By Miranda Cowley Heller
Publish Date: 2021
It's a glorious August morning, when Elle Bishop wakes up after a dinner party and heads for a swim in the freshwater pond below 'The Paper Palace' – the gently decaying summer camp in the back woods of Cape Cod…
Suite Française
By Irène Némirovsky
Publish Date: 2004
Set in 1940, the year France fell to Nazi occupation, Suite Francaise tells two stories, that of a group of Parisians fleeing the invasion and that of a small rural community under German occupation. But even in dire circumstances, Némirovsky…
The Kite Runner
By Khaled Hosseini
Publish Date: 2003
Amir is a young boy who likes running kites with Hassan, the son of his father's servant. But neither of the boys can foresee what is soon to happen, an event that will change their lives forever. Told against the…
Season 5
January 2022 - March 2022
Season 5 of The Queen’s Reading Room saw in a new year of literary treasures with a blended ‘50s Golden Age style murder mystery and modern crime thriller, Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz;the emotional story of William Shakespeare’s wife and son in Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet; the timeless novel by Alexandre Dumas, The Queen’s Necklace, based on the true story of the scandal which in part led to the French Revolution; and the story of a formidable friendship between Elena and Lila, two girls who grow up in a poverty-stricken neighbourhood in 1950s Naples, full of violence and abuse, in Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend.
My Brilliant Friend
By Elena Ferrante
Publish Date: 2011
'Rino’s mother is named Raffaella Cerullo, but everyone has always called her Lina. Not me ... To me, for more than sixty years, she’s been Lila.' Set in the 1950s, My Brilliant Friend is the first volume of the "Neapolitan…
The Queen’s Necklace
By Alexandre Dumas
Publish Date: 1849-1850
Inspired by the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, an incident which took place in the 1780s at the court of Louis XVI involving a precious diamond necklace and Marie Antoinette, The Queen's Necklace tells a tale of duplicity and deception,…
Hamnet
By Maggie O'Farrell
Publish Date: 2020 Awards: 2021 British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year, 2020 Waterstones Book of the Year, 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction
Inspired by Shakespeare's most famous play, Hamnet is the story of a boy whose life has been forgotten, but whose name has echoed throughout the centuries as one of the greatest plays ever written. Reimagining the life of Hamnet Shakespeare,…
Magpie Murders
By Anthony Horowitz
Publish Date: 2016
When editor Susan Ryeland receives the latest manuscript from Alan Conway, the celebrated author of mystery novels centred on the detective Atticus Pund, she does not realise that between the lines is hidden another story, one of greed, jealousy, ruthless…
Season 4
October 2021 - December 2021
Season 4 of The Queen’s Reading Room delved into the evocative story of four generations rent by war, illicit love, violence and leprosy in Victoria Hislop’s The Island; the original ‘sensation novel’, a gripping story of desire, ruthless ambition and chilling suspense in Wilkie Collins’ The Woman In White; the world of crime along the Sussex coast in Peter James’ Roy Grace series; and the Nigerian Civil War in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun.
Half Of A Yellow Sun
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Publish Date: 2006 Awards: 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction
Against the backdrop of the Biafran war to establish the independence of Nigeria, the lives of five people are dramatically upended, and their ideals and personal loyalties tested. The novel follows young Ugwu, the revolutionary professor Odenigbo, the beautiful Olanna,…
Left You Dead
By Peter James
Publish Date: 2021
The eighteen books of this series see Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace investigate mysterious and puzzling crimes. A man haunted by his demons and by the disappearance of his own wife, Roy Grace "is a new, and very different detective...open-minded…
The Woman In White
By Wilkie Collins
Publish Date: 1859-1860
'On a moonlit road close to midnight, a touch on Walter Hartright’s arm sends him spinning. Next to him, materialised as if out of the air, is a woman dressed from head to toe in white.' Published in serialised form…
The Island
By Victoria Hislop
Publish Date: 2005 Awards: 2007 Galaxy British Book Awards Newcomer of the Year Award
The book follows Alexis on a journey to find out about her mother Sofia's past in Crete. Determined to visit the island, she sets off to Greece. Here, she meets Fotini, a friend of her mother's, who reveals to Alexis…
Season 3
July 2021 - September 2021
Season 3 of The Queen’s Reading Room moved us with the story of an ageing English butler and his fading, insular world in post-war Britain in Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day; the terrifying first novel in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’s crime series, The Various Haunts of Men; The Light Years from The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard, a multi-generational family saga set in World War II Britain; and the enchanting wartime classic by Michael Morpurgo, War Horse.
War Horse
By Michael Morpurgo
Publish Date: 1982
Joey is a young farm horse. In 1914, he is sold to the army and finds himself fighting alongside his officer on the Western Front. Amidst the horrors of the Great War on the frontline, his courage will be an…
The Light Years
By Elizabeth Jane Howard
Publish Date: 1990
Every summer, the Cazalet brothers spend two months in the family home in the Sussex countryside with their wives and children, and their unmarried sister Rachel. As they enjoy a seemingly idyllic sojourn, they can't manage to escape their troubles…
The Various Haunts Of Men
By Susan Hill
Publish Date: 2009
This book is the first instalment of the Simon Serrailler crime novels. Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler and policewoman Freya Graffham are investigating the disappearance of a woman on the hill in Lafferton. A pair of cufflinks and a mysterious note…
The Remains Of The Day
By Kazuo Ishiguro
Publish Date: 1989 Awards: 1989 Booker Prize for Fiction
Stevens is an English butler who spent his life to the service of the recently deceased Lord Darlington. Encouraged to take a well-earned vacation, he decides to visit Miss Kenton, the former housekeeper at Darlington Hall. During the journey, he…
Season 2
April 2021 - June 2021
Season 2 of The Queen’s Reading Room transported us with the mystical world of Lyra in Philip Pullman’s The Secret Commonwealth, the second instalment of The Book of Dust series; the harrowing story of a girl kidnapped by terrorists in Nigeria in Edna O’Brien’s Girl; post revolution Moscow through the eyes of a Russian aristocrat sentenced to life in the Metropol Hotel in Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow; and the charming tale of a bookseller who finds a red notebook in an abandoned handbag in Paris in Antoine Lauraine’s The Red Notebook.
The Red Notebook
By Antoine Laurain
Publish Date: 2015
One morning, on his way to work, bookseller Laurent Letellier notices an abandoned handbag on top of a bin. Compelled to return the bag to its rightful owner, he attempts to go to the police, but with no success. Upon…
A Gentleman In Moscow
By Amor Towles
Publish Date: 2016
Moscow, 1922. Count Alexander Rostov is escorted out of the Bolshevik tribunal held in the Kremlin and into the grand Metropol Hotel. An unrepentant aristocrat, he is sentenced to live the rest of his life on the sixth floor of…
Girl
By Edna O'Brien
Publish Date: 2019 Awards: 2020 Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year
Maryam is only a young girl when she is abducted by the Jihadis, finding herself married into Boko Haram. Inspired by the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping, her story is that of many girls, abruptly stripped of their innocence and forced to…
The Secret Commonwealth
By Philip Pullman
Publish Date: 2019
The second volume of Pullman's second trilogy The Book of Dust, this novel follows the protagonist, Lyra, in her second year as a student at Oxford. Pulled into a dark and mysterious world by her daemon, Pantalaimon, Lyra will find…
Season 1
January 2021 - March 2021
Season 1 of The Queen’s Reading Room began our literary journey together with the stunning conclusion to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror & The Light, depicting the final stages of Thomas Cromwell’s dramatic rise and fall in the court of Henry VIII; Delia Owens’ heart-breaking coming-of-age novel Where the Crawdads Sing, the wartime thriller Restless by William Boyd, and Elif Shafak’s mesmerising novel The Architect’s Apprentice, set during the height of the Ottoman Empire.
The Architect’s Apprentice
By Elif Shafak
Publish Date: 2013
Set in 16th century Istanbul, the novel follows the adventures of a boy of humble origins who arrives in the city with a wonderful gift for the sultan, a rare white elephant. On the back of his loyal companion, the…
Restless
By William Boyd
Publish Date: 2006
At the dawn of WW2, the young Eva, a Russian émigrée in Paris, is recruited to work for the British Secret Service. Under the guidance of her mentor, Lucas Romer, she transforms into the perfect spy, but all is not…
Where The Crawdads Sing
By Delia Owens
Publish Date: 2018 Awards: 2021 British Book of the Year: Page Turner Award
Set in the 1950s and '60s, the novel follows the adventures of the young Kya, who grew up isolated in the wild coastal marsh of North Carolina and finds herself accused of the murder of Chase Andrews, a local celebrity.…
The Mirror & The Light
By Hilary Mantel
Publish Date: 2020 Awards: 2021 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction
This novel is the third and final instalment of the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, after Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012). The plot covers the last four years of Cromwell, minister at the court of Henry VIII, from…