Portsmouth university researchers help Duchess Camilla launch an online book club

Duchess Camilla has selected four works of literature for her online book club, launched on the Instagram account The Duchess of Cornwall’s Reading Room today.

The books to be discussed include Dame Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and The Light, William Boyd’s Restless, Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, and The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak.

Each of the titles picked will feature alongside a Book Club Kit – a set of questions to spark engagement and discussion – created in part with the University of Portsmouth.

The questions are part of work by academics to study how reading habits are changing in the face of Covid-19.

Dr Ben Davies, senior lecturer in English Literature at the University of Portsmouth said: ‘We're interested to see for those who have taken up reading novels, how are they reading – in short bursts or for long periods, alone or as part of a virtual collective – and how the slow unfolding of time often associated with novel reading intersects with the feeling of time during lockdown.’

The book club follows the enthusiastic response the Duchess received from a suggested reading list published last year.

In a video to welcome readers to the new Instagram book club, Camilla said: ‘To me, reading is a great adventure. I’ve loved it since I was very small and I’d love everybody else to enjoy it as much as I do.

‘You can escape, and you can travel, and you can laugh and you can cry. There’s every type of emotion humans experience in a book.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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