Led by her yapping corgis to the Westminster travelling library outside Buckingham Palace, the Queen finds herself taking out a novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett. Duff read though it is, the following week he choice proves more enjoyable and awakens in Her Majesty a passion for reading so great that her public duties begin to suffer. And so, as she devours work by everyone from Hardy to Brookner to Proust to Beckett, her equerries conspire to bring the Queen’s literary odyssey to a close.

Really unsure about my thoughts on this book, it has left me not knowing whether I enjoyed it or disliked it! The plot isn’t the problem, being a standard good versus evil one, and it does have some nice touches. You do care about the main protagonists of Thomas and Kate, and whether they succeed [...]