The relationship between Charles and Camilla, the king and queen of England, has been under a microscope for decades. Charles’s first wife, Princess Diana, who died in 1997, was pretty uniformly beloved, and Camilla was … well, let’s just say it took the public some time to warm up to her.
But despite how things went down all those years ago, it’s become clear that Charles and Camilla absolutely adore each other. They laugh at the same things, as she revealed last year on the couple’s 20th anniversary, and they enjoy spending time together even when they are like two “ships passing in the night,” as she told British Vogue a few years ago.
It makes one wonder why they didn’t just marry each other right off the bat, but that’s a whole other story. And everyone deserves happiness, right? Now, in a new documentary, the queen is opening up about a nighttime ritual that she shares with her husband, and it is so sweet and relatable, you might almost forget they’re royalty. Read on to learn what these two do to keep the love alive.
Get Reader’s Digest’s Read Up newsletter for more royal news, tech, humor, travel and fun facts all week long.
What is the royal couple’s sweet nighttime ritual?
Like a lot of couples, the king and queen read together every night. She divulged their charming routine in a new BBC documentary called The Book That Changed My Life. The documentary was produced in partnership with the Open University and Camilla’s charity, the Queen’s Reading Room, as part of the U.K.’s National Year of Reading.
“My husband and I actually read before dinner,” Camilla told the BBC. “We just like sitting quietly and reading.”
The queen went on to paint a picture of domesticity for the royal pair, describing how reading and their pre-dinner ritual are incredibly important to her. “It’s part of our heritage. If there’s no reading, personally, we might as well all give up,” Camilla said. “Because I don’t think we’d even be human anymore.”
What’s the one pet peeve Camilla has about Charles’s reading habits?
He’s apparently not one to stay silent when reading, much to the queen’s dismay. “I, occasionally, when I’m deep in a book, hear him roaring with laughter about something,” Camilla said in the doc. “It’s very off-putting. I can’t get back into my book, or I’ll suddenly start weeping. But it’s a lovely, quiet time.”
She chalks up this quirk to the fact that Charles enjoys reading P.G. Wodehouse, the famed British humorist behind literary characters such as the quintessential English butler, Jeeves, and his employer, Bertie Wooster. Camilla, meanwhile, prefers thrillers and historical fiction, which aren’t exactly known for their laugh-a-minute hilarity.
How seriously does Camilla take her reading?
Very. She points to her own early life spent reading and how it set her up for success when opportunities were limited. “I left school quite young, because in my day, women didn’t go to university,” Camilla said. “I think reading has been most of my education.”
The queen credits her father, Bruce Shand, with instilling a love of reading in her. “We must’ve been very, very young when my father started reading to us,” she said. “I think that’s where my love of reading came from.” She recalled reading Treasure Island and Peter Pan before graduating to A Tale of Two Cities, which she said coincided with her childhood fascination with the guillotine!
“I don’t think our childhood would have been the same if we didn’t have books,” she told the BBC.
The Queen’s Reading Room, which began as a book club during the COVID-19 pandemic and now reaches 12 million people in 183 countries, is an extension of her love of reading. But it’s about more than that: The Queen’s Reading Room also funds neuroscience research to study how reading and well-being are connected, and partners with other charities to provide books to people in the hospital or experiencing homelessness or domestic abuse.
What are some of Camilla’s favorite books?
Every year, Camilla highlights multiple must-read books on the Queen’s Reading Room website. She picks four books per season, or 16 books a year. Since 2021, she has recommended 64 books.
Despite her professed love of thrillers and historical fiction, her book list is quite diverse. Here are the highlights:
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
- The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Queen’s Necklace by Alexandre Dumas
- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
- The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
- Love in the Time of the Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
- Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
- Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Sources:
- The Queen’s Reading Room
- Guardian: “The Book That Changed My Life review – these joyful tales of the power of reading are TV magic”
- BBC: “BBC Arts reveals title and broadcast date for new documentary featuring Her Majesty Queen Camilla”
- The Royal Family: “A message from The Queen to mark the 5th anniversary of The Queen’s Reading Room”
- Facebook: “The Queen reflects on a lifetime of reading – and some of her childhood favourites”
- People: “Queen Camilla Reveals the ‘Off-Putting’ Thing King Charles Does Before Dinner as She Details Their Nightly Routine”
- Facebook: “We like sitting quietly and reading. Occasionally, when I’m deep in a book, I’ll hear him roaring with laughter about something”
- ITV: “The Queen shares her secrets to a happy marriage as she celebrates 20th wedding anniversary”
- Good Morning America: “Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall gives rare interview about her life with Prince Charles”
The post King Charles and Queen Camilla’s Nighttime Ritual Is Surprisingly Sweet appeared first on Reader's Digest.
from Reader's Digest https://ift.tt/uwVTXEM
Comments
Post a Comment