Camilla Shares Reading Stories in Upcoming BBC Documentary

Queen Camilla describes private reading evenings with King Charles in the BBC Arts documentary The Book That Changed My Life, airing on BBC Two and iPlayer on October 14. They sit quietly before dinner at Clarence House; his biographies and P.G. Wodehouse make him roar with laughter while her books leave her weeping. Camilla, 79, left school at 16 with one O level and calls reading most of her education. She cried through her father Major Bruce Shand's memoir Previous Engagements, about his WWII service as a 12th Lancer, a sniper wound through the face, and two and a half years as a POW in Germany. she secretly read Lady Chatterley's Lover by torchlight. She says losing books would be a complete and utter tragedy. The film includes former prisoner Omar Mentesh, who found The Eagle Has Landed in his cell as a teenager. Camilla's Queen's Reading Room, begun as a pandemic book club, works with the National Literacy Trust after UK youth reading enjoyment hit a 20-year low. At a preview she called the finale one of the most unusual book club meetings over tea.