The Queen’s Reading Room, launched by Her Majesty Queen Camilla in 2023, is the charity working to celebrate and promote the power and benefits of reading, in the UK and beyond.

Currently, only one in two UK adults reads a book in a year. We want to change that.

Through groundbreaking neuroscientific research, we seek to discover and celebrate the unique power of books to improve brain health, mental health and social connection. Our first study using brain scans and skin conductance tests found that just five minutes of reading fiction both reduces stress by nearly 20% and improves the brain’s capacity to manage stress; all while boosting concentration and focus and reducing feelings of loneliness. You can learn more about our study here.

Our charity seeks to promote the accessibility and joy of stories and storytelling and we reach more than twelve million people in 183 countries around the world each year with our free, educational content around books; as well as staging major festivals and events around the UK and internationally. The charity was born from an Instagram book club launched in lockdown of 2021.

The Queen’s Reading Room is proud to partner with a range of charities to help bring books, authors and stories to everyone. Because books make life better.

Our groundbreaking neuroscience

In our digital age, and with reading rates the lowest on record, it is more important than ever that we understand the transformative power of reading for pleasure.

Our neuroscientific research, published in February 2023, revealed that which many suspected before: reading is good for you. In fact, our study using EEG brain scans found that reading for just 5 minutes a day can reduce stress levels by almost 20%, decrease feelings of anxiety and depression and increase social connectedness.

Our mission, working in partnership with world-leading experts in this field, is to understand what the impact of regular reading is on wellbeing across the course of a human lifetime.

Because if each of us is empowered with that knowledge, we can make the choice to read more.

Spreading the story

We believe that books belong to everyone and so we’re on a mission to spread access to books, authors and reading.

Initially founded as an Instagram bookclub during lockdown of 2021, we connected people around the world into an online community of book lovers.

Since then, we have produced and released free, accessible and engaging content around books 365 days a year, across a variety of platforms. This content now reaches twelve million people a year in 174 countries.

Our fun-filled live events have within two years filled more than 20,000 seats.

We want to spread the message far and wide: it doesn’t matter what you read, as long as you’re reading.

Transforming wellbeing

We are delighted to be working with a range of charity partners to deliver books, authors and shared reading groups into spaces where wellbeing might be boosted: from shelters, to food banks, soup kitchens and more.

We are embarking on an ambitious programme of grassroots activity with our partners St Mungo’s and Reading for Wellbeing and look forward to spreading the joy and comfort of books to many more people around the UK.