They contrive ways to dissuade the monarch - they banish poor Norman to a creative writing course at East Anglia University and at one point, they even blow up poor Anita Brookner (well, her words, not her person) and claim they were foiling a terrorist attack. She starts to worry less about duty and more about reading, even hiding books under cushions on her way to the State Opening of Parliament. She devours it all, from Nancy Mitford, through Thomas Hardy, Jean Genet, John Betjeman and well, just about everyone. Guided at first by Norman, dubbed by ERII an amanuensis and by her consort a ginger stick-in-waiting, the Queen has a literary epiphany. It's the start of something new for the Queen, whose horizons suddenly open. When she returns it, she strikes up a conversation with a kitchen assistant, the carrot-topped Norman, who recommends a Nancy Mitford. She chooses an Ivy Compton-Burnett and it turns out to be a rather duff read.
Hot in pursuit, the Queen feels obliged to borrow a book to compensate for the pandemonium they cause. One day, when the Westminster mobile library van makes its customary stop at Buckingham Palace, it is overrun by escaped corgis. There is a sharp analysis of the reader and a powerful defence of reading. Summary: A more affectionate satire than you might expect, there are still some wonderful hatchet jobs together with the usual wonderful dialogue and multiple layers of jokes.
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