This sweet novella imagines a mature Queen Elizabeth II suddenly discovering the joys of books and reading, so much so that she is beginning to neglect her royal duties. One morning, as the Queen is walking her corgis, they start yapping at a large van near the palace's kitchen doors. It turns out to be the City of Westminster's traveling library, and she climbs the steps to apologize for her noisy dogs. To be polite, she makes conversation and leaves with a work by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Thinking to return it the following week, her eyes fall upon Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love. She finds more and more time for reading and less for state occasions. Her worried staff try to dissuade her, even resorting to firing an employee who makes book suggestions, but it's no use; she has become an avid reader, no longer willing to forego a pleasure she denied herself for way too long, and even hinting at an interest in writing. Good to read through to find a little twist at the very end.
