Launched in January 2021 by Camilla on her Instagram account, the “Queen’s Reading Room” has a new prestigious reader: Queen Mathilde of Belgium. This information on the social networks of the Royal Palace of Belgium as well as on the website of this work which became a charity in February 2023. The objective of “The Queen’s Reading Room” which has 170,000 subscribers on Instagram is to work to celebrate and promote the power and benefits of reading around the world. Its mission is to help as many people as possible find and become interested in books that enrich their lives, by providing free educational content 365 or even 366 days a year.
A great reader, the wife of King Philippe, who is himself an avid reader, could only support Camilla’s project. The two, as we know, are quite close. Recently, in March, they met in London at Buckingham Palace for International Women’s Day. Mathilde therefore agreed, like Charles III, the Princess of Wales, the actress Judi Dench and the actor Richard E. Grent to join Queen Camilla’s very select book club. To do this, she shared three of her favorite novels.
The first, “The Bold: When Burgundy defied Europe”, is the work of the writer from Herentals, Bart Van Loo. According to the Queen, “he succeeds in transforming historical figures into people of flesh and blood that we would like to have known”. She adds: “Don’t let the 600 pages put you off, this book reads like a thriller.”
A book by a Wavrienne
The second book was written by Wavrienne Colette Nys-Mazure. “Celebration of everyday life”, continues the Queen, is a “wonderful book which invites us to appreciate the little things in our life because, in the routine of everyday life, we are often elsewhere, absent from ourselves, deaf to this permanent miracle what is our ordinary life. I hope his lesson of hope will appeal to you as much as it has appealed to me.”
The third work, “Les Amnésiques” was created by the Franco-German Géraldine Schwarz. A book where the author dares to evaluate her family tree by telling the story of her family again. “It invites us to think about how nations should deal with collective guilt, and how to ensure we remember. It’s a book that you will probably discuss with your family and friends, or in class,” concludes Mathilde.
