A-Z Wednesday: "U"

A-Z Wednesday is hosted by Vicki at Reading At The Beach. To join in, just visit her blog for the guidelines and leave your link in a comment.

This week's letter is "U." So I went to my shelves, and this is what I pulled out.

The Uncommon Reader
Written by Alan Bennett
Published 2007

The cover of the first edition:



Description from Good Reads:

When her corgis stray into a mobile library parked near Buckingham Palace, the Queen feels duty-bound to borrow a book. Discovering the joy of reading widely (from J. R. Ackerley, Jean Genet, and Ivy Compton-Burnett to the classics) and intelligently, she finds that her view of the world changes dramatically. Abetted in her newfound obsession by Norman, a young man from the royal kitchens, the Queen comes to question the prescribed order of the world and loses patience with the routines of her role as monarch. Her new passion for reading initially alarms the palace staff and soon leads to surprising and very funny consequences for the country at large.

See the author's page at Wikipedia here.
See the book's page at Amazon.com here.

The cover of the first American edition:


A photo of the author:


And a photo of the queen herself looking very sunny in yellow (you know you love the hat):



This little book is wicked funny. I read it last year and couldn't stop laughing. I even made my husband read it and he has passed it on to his colleagues at work. Of course, I find Queen Elizabeth endlessly entertaining anyway, but Bennett's version of the old girl is hilarious and yet strangely respectful at the same time. If Bennett's QEII isn't the real QEII, then she should be!