Monday 17th February
* A Book Club Event *
‘The Uncommon Reader’ by Alan Bennett (2008) London: Faber & Faber
introduced by Barbara MacKenzie
This book is described as a novella. It’s a short, funny, observant story about the Queen. In this fiction she stumbles across books via a mobile library in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Books and reading change her and her relationships with people. It’s a celebration of the power of the written word, but it is also trying to create a real person in place of the enigmatic icon that is the Queen. As Royal celebrations of every kind – Jubilees, Weddings and Babies – fill our media, what do we know about them? What do we project onto the blank screen of the Royal family? It would be good to have fun thinking about this, in the spirit of Alan Bennett.
About the Speaker
Barbara MacKenzie is now mostly retired, with a small private practice in East London. Before retiring Barbara worked as a counsellor in GP practices for twenty years, and before that was a social worker. As an avid theatre and film goer Barbara is keen to think about how the arts illuminate and inform our work.
