A royal read: Queen Camilla’s favourite books revealed  

In January, Camilla attended a screening of the Oscar-nominated film Hamnet in London – which isn’t too surprising, given she once raved about the 2020 historical fiction novel it is based on. In fact, Camilla has declared Maggie O’Farrell “one of our greatest living writers”.

Both the book and the film tell the story of William Shakespeare and his wife as they deal with the death of their young son, Hamnet.

Given her own complicated romantic history with her now-husband, King Charles, it’s understandable that Persuasion resonates with Camilla.

“It’s the great book of second chances and finding love later in life,” the royal says of the novel, which follows heroine Anne Elliot as she reunites with the naval officer she once loved but was encouraged to reject.

“A clever, funny novel – a masterpiece of Parisian perfection,” is how Camilla has described The Red Notebook.

Just 159 pages long, it follows a French bookseller who comes across an abandoned handbag in the street. With only the bag’s contents to go off, including a red notebook filled with jottings, he sets out to find the owner.

Camilla has held Anna Sewell’s beloved equine tale dear since girlhood. “I was a sort of pony-mad child, and I thought of very little else apart from horses and ponies and charging about on them, so I think Black Beauty was the first book that stuck in my mind,” she once shared.

“Every time I think about poor old Ginger with his head hanging out of the cart with his tongue hanging, it makes me cry now.”

Most of us have books we return to again and again, and Queen Camilla is no exception. She says she loves revisiting the “irresistibly charming” Cazalet family at the heart of this multi-book series.

Beginning with the first novel, The Light Years, the saga starts in England just before World War II, and traces the aristocratic clan through decades of love, loss, and ambition, as war, secrets, and shifting loyalties reshape their lives.

One classic novel that left Camilla wanting more was the horror-mystery The Woman in White.

It’s been claimed that Camilla once listened to the audiobook version while out on a drive. She later told a friend that she remained parked in her driveway, not wanting to get out, as she was enthralled and needed to hear the next five minutes of the chapter!