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Calling all literature-lovers: The Queen’s Reading Room Festival returns to Hampton Court Palace for another year of fantastic story-telling, brilliant performances and exceptional live shows Buy tickets A literary festival like no other, immerse yourself in the breathtaking… Read More

Q&A with Donna Tartt

Q&A with Donna Tartt

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Donna Tartt has been incredibly generous in agreeing to answer some questions that were sent to her by The Queen’s Reading Room. Here are some of her insightful and astute responses.   You have written three novels, all of which have been extremely successful. When you are writing fiction, do… Read More

The Magic and Mystique of Donna Tartt

The Magic and Mystique of Donna Tartt

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Donna Tartt was born on December 23rd 1963 in Greenwood, Mississippi. She was born into a family of book lovers and was surrounded by an appreciation of literature from a young age. By the time she was thirteen years old, Donna had her work published for the first time in… Read More

The Story of Mary Shelley

The Story of Mary Shelley

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Mary Shelley was born in London on August 30th 1797. Her parents were both well known figures who featured prominently in the London literary scene. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was a feminist writer and women’s rights activist and her father, William Godwin, was a political philosopher. Both had achieved success… Read More

The History of Women in Science

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Bonnie Garmus, author of the much-heralded Lessons in Chemistry, has a history in the sciences and has always struggled with the concept of unequal opportunities within this field. She created her much loved character, Elizabeth Zott, as a way of portraying the struggle that female scientists have experienced since they… Read More

Heroines of the Special Operations Executive

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The SOE (Special Operations Executive) was a British organisation established during World War II to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe. The organisation recruited mainly men and a few brave and intrepid women as agents, many of whom were highly effective in their missions. Let’s take a closer… Read More

The Importance of Family – Gabriel García Márquez

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Much has been made of the influence of Gabriel García Márquez’s family on his work – especially Love in the Time of Cholera. He has spoken extensively about his grandmother, his grandfather, their faith, their stories and their love. Most importantly, what this love meant to Gabriel and subsequently, his… Read More

M.M. Kaye and Paul Scott

M.M. Kaye and Paul Scott

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Paul Scott was born in 1920 in Southgate in London. He inherited both his mother’s creativity and his father’s practicality and Scott found that he was divided between these two approaches for the whole of his life. Scott was successful at school and in 1943 aged twenty-two, he joined… Read More

M.M. Kaye’s Children’s Writing

M.M. Kaye’s Children’s Writing

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Although best known for The Far Pavilions, M.M. Kaye wrote prolifically throughout her life both for children and adults. In 1980 she published The Ordinary Princess, which is the story of a princess who at her christening was bestowed the gift of ordinariness. This meant that instead of having long… Read More

Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Paris

Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Paris

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Mrs ‘Arris Goes To Paris is really a fairy tale in disguise. Mrs Harris is bewitched by the idea of a Dior dress, and as soon as she arrives in Paris, she starts to play the part of both fairy godmother and princess, with varying degrees of success. The ‘transformation’… Read More