The Uncommon Reader

Infobox Book
name = The Uncommon Reader
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = A First edition of the novel
author = Alan Bennett
illustrator =
cover_artist = Peter Campbell
country = flagicon|England England
language = English
series =
subject =
genre =
publisher = Faber & Faber
pub_date = 2007
english_pub_date =
media_type = Hardback
pages = 124
isbn = 978-1-84668-049-6
oclc = NA
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Uncommon Reader" is a novella by Alan Bennett. After appearing first in the "London Review of Books", Vol. 29, No. 5 (March 8, 2007), it was published later the same year in book form by Faber & Faber.

Plot

The title's "uncommon reader" (Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom) becomes obsessed with books after a chance encounter with a mobile library. The story follows the consequences of this obsession for the Queen, her household and advisers, and her constitutional position.

The title is a play on the phrase "common reader". This can mean a person who reads for pleasure, as opposed to a critic or scholar. It can also mean a set text, a book that everyone in a group (for example, all students entering a university) are expected to read, so that they can have something in common. "A Common Reader" is used by Virginia Woolf as the title work of her 1925 essay collection.

In British English, "common" holds levels of connotation. A commoner is anyone other than royalty, though in modern contexts, the word is rather derogatory. "Common" as an adjective has the now old-fashioned meaning, additional to the main meaning of "frequent" or "ordinary", of "working class", as in "the common man" or "the common people".

External links

* [http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/bennetta/unreader.htm "The Complete Review"] (with further links)
*John Crace's [http://books.guardian.co.uk/digestedread/story/0,,2162016,00.html "Digested Read"]
* [http://us.macmillan.com/theuncommonreader "The Uncommon Reader"] publisher's page