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Sunday, June 01, 2008
A Novella For the Reader in You
Title: The Uncommon Reader
Author: Alan Bennett
Recently reviewed on this blog, The Uncommon Reader is a wonderful little story about what would happen if the Queen of England suddenly developed an obsession with reading. This novella helps its reader to rediscover all the reasons he or she started reading in the first place, and reminds "one" (to use the term the Queen is forever using to refer to herself) of the all-too-common desire to share one's passion for reading. Since Elizabeth has done a far better job than I ever could, I'll just point you to her review and second her statement that "if you miss this book, you would be remiss."Labels: Brit lit, fiction, novella, royalty
posted by Kate at
9:29 PM
3 Comments:
Hurray, you also liked it! It really is such a great little book. : )
6/03/2008 6:19 AM
I remember hearing about this one on NPR back before Elizabeth posted it, and it sounded pretty entertaining. Then they started talking about all the bizarre questions the Queen asked of other heads of state, like their opinion on Dostoyevsky's view of the people, or something, and wondered whether I wasn't well-read enough to really get all the jokes. On the other hand, sometimes Get Fuzzy makes me feel that way, too.
6/03/2008 9:08 AM
I'm not well-read enough to get all the jokes either, but my favorite part was where she calls up some pastor or something (forgive me, can't remember who) and asks why she never gets to do the scripture readings. everyone else does and she wants to know if there's some sort of unspoken rule or something. he responds that there is no rule and she goes "Leviticus, here I come!" which was just too funny.
Okay, so my retelling isn't nearly as good. You should just read it. It is a very quick read.
And as we saw in her review, even the well-read Elizabeth didn't know who Genet was.
6/03/2008 9:16 AM
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