#68: The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
I picked up this little novella at work and breezed through it (it’s only 120 pages long); it might interest you to know that it was written by Alan Bennett, the author of The History Boys, which should really tell you all you need to know about The Uncommon Reader, like for instance it’s charming and clever and makes the frosty Queen of England seem somewhat adorable, like you wouldn’t want her to be your grandmother but maybe you’d like to hang out with her one day and talk about books, now that she’s so into reading I mean, because she really likes the novels of Nancy Mitford (so do I) and she likes to gossip about all the Mitford girls (so do I), most all of whom are dead by now, and she calls herself “one”, as in “One does seem to be reading a lot lately, doesn’t one?” which I don’t do but which strikes me as very Cedric Hampton of her, and God knows I love me some Cedric Hampton.
