Queen Camilla tonight approved new research showing that five minutes of reading a day is as valuable to health and wellbeing as walking 10,000 steps and eating five portions of fruit and vegetables.
In a speech to mark the third anniversary of her book club, The Queen’s Reading Room, and its first registered charity, Her Majesty said: ‘In addition to our five steps a day and our 10,000 steps, we should all aim to read at least 5 minutes every day for invaluable benefits for brain health and mental well-being.
‘As we always suspected, books are good for us – and now science proves us right!’
Groundbreaking new neuroscience research commissioned by the charity to determine if there is a link between reading fiction and wellbeing suggests that reading for just five minutes can reduce stress, improve concentration and help people feel more connected.
Camilla spoke to an audience that included authors Philippa Gregory, Sir Michael Morpurgo, Bernadine Evaristo and Harlan Corben, as well as actors Helena Bonham Carter, Dame Joanna Lumley, Rupert Everett and Derek Jacobi at Clarence House: ‘It is a great pleasure to be called I would like to welcome you to Clarence House this evening to mark my Reading Room’s third anniversary as a book club and its first as a charity.
Harlan Coben, Donna Tartt, Queen Camilla, Helena Bonham Carter and Dame Joanna Lumley
Queen Camilla (centre) and director of The Queen’s Reading Room, Vicki Perrin (right) at a reception to celebrate the findings of a new study commissioned by the charity The Queen’s Reading Room, at Clarence House
Queen Camilla tonight approved new research showing that five minutes of reading a day is as valuable to health and wellbeing as walking 10,000 steps and eating five portions of fruit and vegetables. Pictured with Vicki Perrin
‘This year is also the 125th anniversary of the birth of the late, great Sir Noel Coward. He was a brilliant and very funny man who, as a friend of the Queen Mother, came here to many events.
‘I doubt, however, that this reception will be as chilling as that in The Master’s song, ‘I went to a great party’ with its beautiful lines: We knew the excitement would begin when Laura went blind to Dubonnet and gin
And her veneer scratched with a Cartier pin. I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.’
Referring to the ‘shared love of good books that has brought us together tonight’, the Queen spoke of the need to ‘promote the passion for reading’.
‘And for that there is no better inspiration than the man of the moment, Noel Coward, who left school at the age of nine and attributed all his subsequent knowledge to his membership of Battersea Park Library and to reading everything he could get his hands on get it,” she said.
‘Thanks to all of you, the Reading Room is doing what it can to spread the message about how literature, quite simply, makes life better. Since its inception three years ago, it has reached almost 12 million people across its platforms, produced more than a thousand pieces of educational literary content and held its first festival at Hampton Court, attended by almost 8,000 people from as far away as the United States. States, Canada, North Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
‘A podcast has also been launched, which this year takes us into the ‘reading rooms’ of 32 fascinating writers, actors and thinkers. And now, with this first study, we begin an important journey to understand the science behind the power of stories to enrich our lives.
Queen Camilla during a reception to celebrate the findings of a new study commissioned by The Queen’s Reading Room
Queen Camilla looks into a microscope during a reception to celebrate the findings of a new study commissioned by the charity The Queen’s Reading Room
‘This would not have been possible without all of you: your talents, your imagination, your originality, your support and, above all, your deep love for the written word. ‘
The Queen noted that Noel Coward died 51 years ago today/yesterday – with a book in his hand.
“It was by his favorite author, the children’s author E Nesbit, who once famously said: ‘There is no better bond than reading and liking the same books,’” she said.
‘We share a very special bond, ladies and gentlemen: our love for books. Thanks for helping spread the message. ‘
Dame Joanna Lumley said of The Queen’s Reading Room: ‘It’s like walking into a room with a packet of crisps when everyone is hungry, people are hungry for something and then they take it and devour it. That’s why this book club has reached 12 million in three years, and that’s an extraordinary number. It’s like rock star stuff. And it will only get better.
‘I would like to introduce some rules. No screens, you should sing loudly at school, together, you should read every day and you should go outside every day to do something useful. But first of all, I would break those screens.
‘Reading makes you feel less stressed, takes you to a happy place, never feels alone with a book. And we’ve all discovered that the same things are activated. And yet we only give children small screens. ‘
Asked about the way Camilla recently kept the royal show on the road, Dame Joanna added: ‘They (the royal family) are all extremely dutiful. It’s just like in the theater: if someone is sick, someone steps in their place and the understudy keeps the show going
‘She is the epitome of professionalism and public service. Everyone thinks they should blubber in a corner, but that’s not what these people are made of. And it is something we should strive for. If you sit alone and feel sorry for yourself, you will feel sad and tragic. But if you get up and do something with a smile, you feel better.”
The American thriller writer Harlan Coben described the queen as ‘very impressive’.
‘She is. goalkeeper, as we say in America,” he smiled.
“She turns authors into rock stars, how many queens do that?”
Crime writer Peter James, one of Camilla’s favorite writers, added: ‘She goes out and beats the drum for us. She makes writers feel like rock stars. And it comes from a very authentic place.”
Author Ken Follett said: ‘Reading helps you deal with stress, and that’s fascinating. But then you think about it and realize that the characters you’re reading about are also experiencing stress themselves, elves, so when you read about the things that happen to them, you relax a little.
‘We are so lucky in the book world that our Queen wants to promote reading and literacy. Really and truly.’
Camilla was introduced to actress Helena Bonham Carter and greeted her warmly. The star referenced the King and Princess of Wales’ battle with cancer, telling her: ‘I’m so sorry for what you’re all going through. Anything I can do to help, we will do.”
They spent an hour talking to authors, actors and neuroscientists and even had the chance to look at a brain cell through a microscope to learn more about the positive effects of reading.
