The Uncommon Reader

  “It was the dogs' fault. They were snobs and ordinarily, having been in the garden, would have gone up the front steps, where a footman generally opened them the door. Today, though, for some reason they careered along the terrace, barking their heads off, and scampered down the steps again and round the end along the side of the house, where she could hear them yapping at something in one of the yards.
  It was the City of Westminster travelling library, a large removal-like van parked next to the bins outside one of the kitchen doors. This wasn't a part of the palace she saw much of, and she had certainly never seen the library there before, nor presumably had the dogs, hence the din, so having failed in her attempt to calm them down she went up the little steps of the van in order to apologise.
  The driver was sitting with his back to her, sticking a label on a book, the only seeming borrower a thin ginger-haired boy in white overalls crouched in the aisle reading. Neither of them took any notice of the new arrival, so she coughed and said, “I'm sorry about this awful racket,” whereupon the driver got up so suddenly he banged his head on the Reference section and the boy in the aisle scrambled to his feet and upset Photography and Fashion.
  She put her head out of the door. “Shut up this minute, you silly creatures” – which, as had been the move's intention, gave the driver/ librarian time to compose himself and the boy to pick up the books.
  “One has never seen you here before, Mr …”
  “Hutchings, Your Majesty. Every Wednesday, ma'am.”
  “Really? I never knew that. Have you come far?”
  “Only from Westminster, ma'am.”
  “And you are …?”
  “Norman, ma'am. Seakins.”
  “And where do you work?”
  “In the kitchen, ma'am.”
  “Oh. Do you have much time for reading?”
  “Not really, ma'am.”
  “I'm the same. Though now that one is here I suppose one ought to borrow a book.”
  Mr Hutchings smiled helpfully.
  “Is there anything you would recommend?”
  “What does Your Majesty like?”
  The Queen hesitated, because to tell the truth she wasn't sure. She'd never taken much interest in reading. She read, of course, as one did, but liking books was something she left to other people. It was a hobby and it was in the nature of her job that she didn't have hobbies. Jogging, growing roses, chess or rock-climbing, cake decoration, model aeroplanes. No. Hobbies involved preferences and preferences had to be avoided; preferences excluded people. One had no preferences. Her job was to take an interest, not to be interested herself. And besides, reading wasn't doing. She was a doer. So she gazed round the book-lined van and played for time. “Is one allowed to borrow a book? One doesn't have a ticket?”
  “No problem,” said Mr Hutchings.
  “One is a pensioner,” said the Queen, not that she was sure that it made a difference.
  “Ma'am can borrow up to six books.”
  “Six? Heavens!” […]

  The Pursuit of Love turned out to be a fortunate choice and in its way a momentous one. Had Her Majesty gone for another duff read, an early George Eliot, say, or a late Henry James, novice reader that she was she might have been put off reading for good and there would be no story to tell. Books, she would have thought, were work.
  As it was, with this one she soon became engrossed and, passing her bedroom that night clutching his hot water bottle, the duke heard her laugh out loud. He put his head round the door. “All right, old girl?”
  “Of course. I'm reading.”
  “Again?” And he went off, shaking his head.
  The next morning she had a little sniffle and, having no engagements, stayed in bed saying she felt she might be getting flu. This was uncharacteristic and also not true; it was actually so she could get on with her book.
  “The Queen as a slight cold” was what the nation was told, and what the Queen herself did not know, was that this was only the first of a series of accommodations, some of them far-reaching, that reading was going to involve.