Uncommon Reader
Alan Bennett, whose diaries from the LRB I’ve used in my classes, was on National Public Radio. He was being interviewed about his new book The Uncommon Reader in which Queen Elizabeth “gets so absorbed in reading that even while riding in a carriage, she is reading a book with one hand while waving to her subjects with the other.” Once she begins reading, and changes ensue, a courtier describes her as having become “a handful.”
Update: Maud Newton’s L.A. Times review here.
