King and Queen host reception to unveil national reading medal

Independent

25-03-2025

The Queen has launched a new national honour to recognise the UK's 'reading heroes', celebrating individuals who champion books.
At a star-studded reception hosted at Clarence House on Tuesday, Camilla unveiled the Queen's Reading Room Medal, which will be awarded annually to people who support storytelling in their local communities.
The event marked the fourth anniversary of the Queen's Reading Room, a charity she founded following the success of her Instagram book club during the pandemic.
It has since grown into a global hub for reading advocacy, with a podcast, research initiatives, and an annual literary festival drawing tens of thousands of visitors.
Welcoming authors, actors and literary figures, the Queen addressed guests alongside the King, who stood beside her during her speech.
'Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen – it is a huge pleasure to welcome you all to Clarence House,' she said.
'Making life better is the ultimate aim of my Reading Room. We believe that books make for a happier, healthier and more connected society.'
She added: 'Through literature, we experience life through another's eyes – we are comforted, strengthened, we laugh, we cry, we travel to different lands, and we escape the real world.
'In short, books, and those who create them, make life much better – so thank you.'
The medal, which opens for nominations on April 1, 2025, will be awarded for the first time in March 2026.
Anyone over 18 can nominate themselves or others, and a judging panel made up of leading figures in publishing has been assembled to choose the inaugural winners, organisers said.
Nominees will include people who have set up community reading groups, improved access to local libraries, donated books to those in need, or organised local literary festivals.
Guests at the Clarence House reception included authors Anthony Horowitz, Kate Atkinson, Peter James, Donna Tartt and Ann Cleeves.
Also in attendance were actors Dame Joanna Lumley, Sigourney Weaver, Adjoa Andoh and Richard E Grant.
There was also a display marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen, featuring rare items from Austen's House and the Royal Collection Trust.
The Queen said her current Reading Room recommendation was Sense And Sensibility, Austen's first, anonymously published novel.
She said: 'One of the first people to buy her book was the future King George IV, who paid 15 shillings for it two days before it was publicly advertised.
'He liked it so much that, two years later, he bought a second copy.
'Her voice and characters remain as fresh, witty and true to life as ever.
'Who among us has not encountered the pomposity of a Mr Collins, the dastardly attractiveness of a Willoughby, or the gossipy meddling of an Emma?'
Dame Joanna praised the Queen's literacy campaign, saying: 'The Queen's Reading Room is one of the great foundations that Her Majesty has set forth.
'It is hugely important.
'When you read a book it is completely free – the characters are of your own imagination, so they can be as beautiful or fat or thin, pale or dark or extraordinary as your mind takes them.
'I never go to bed without reading, I never spend a day without reading, I never travel without a book in my pocket.
'Particularly as we move into an age where we're going to have to start taking mobile phones off children.'
Fellow actor Miriam Margolyes described the Queen as 'real class' for championing literature, adding: 'Reading opens out the world, it opens out life.
'It engages your whole thought – when you read it stops the world and you enter into that space.'
Vicki Perrin, chief executive of the Queen's Reading Room, said: 'We are delighted to announce the Queen's Reading Room Medal – a special recognition award for those reading heroes across the nation who champion books and reading in their local communities.'