Duchess of Cornwall Reading Room book club: list of recommended reads - from Where The Crawdads Sing to Hillary Mantell

Books by Hillary Mantel and Delia Owens are among the royal’s recommendations
The Duchess of Cornwall has unveiled the reading list for her new book club (Getty Images)The Duchess of Cornwall has unveiled the reading list for her new book club (Getty Images)
The Duchess of Cornwall has unveiled the reading list for her new book club (Getty Images)

The Duchess of Cornwall has launched her Reading Room book club on Instagram.

Books by Hillary Mantel and Delia Owens were among the books which made the royal’s first virtual book club shortlist.

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The book club was set up by Camilla Parker-Bowles to encourage reading during the pandemic.

In a video to welcome readers to her Instagram-based Reading Room, Camilla said: “To me, reading is a great adventure. I’ve loved it since I was very small and I’d love everybody else to enjoy it as much as I do.

“You can escape, and you can travel, and you can laugh and you can cry. There’s every type of emotion humans experience in a book.”

Which books did the Duchess of Cornwall recommend?

The Duchess of Cornwall has recommended the final instalment of Dame Hilary Mantel’s acclaimed Wolf Hall trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, for fans logging on to her online book club

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She also recommended 2018 novel Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, which was named as a New York Times bestseller in December.

Parker-Bowles also recommended William Boyd’s espionage novel Restless and The Architect’s Apprentice by British-Turkish author Elif Shafak.

What are each of the books about?

The Mirror and the Light: The final book in Hillary Mantel’s closes the rising arc of mercurial Tudor plotter, politician and power broker Thomas Cromwell.

The Mirror and the Light finds Cromwell at he peak of his powers, but with many enemies equipped with sharpened knives lurking in the shadows.

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Where The Crawdads Sing: Delia Jones’ novel tells the story of a young woman, abandoned at age ten to survive alone in the wild coastal marsh of North Carolina.

Her reputation as the barefooted and wild “Marsh Girl” haunts, a quiet fishing village and when a popular local is found dead, villagers immediately suspect her.

Restless: Restless tells the story ofEva Delectorskaya and the consequences of her career as a spy, fleeting between two timelines; on ein the 1940s and the other in the 1970s.

In the 1940s strand Eva works as a spy for the British during World War II. In the 1970s strand, Eva's daughter Ruth attempts to discover the truth behind the events Eva witnessed in World War II.

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The Architect’s Apprentice: Elif Shafak’s epic novel is set over a 100-year period of the Ottoman Empire.

Penguin Random House writes: A memorable story of artistic freedom, creativity, and the clash between science and fundamentalism, Shafak’s intricate novel brims with vibrant characters, intriguing adventure, and the lavish backdrop of the Ottoman court, where love and loyalty are no match for raw power.

How does the book club work?

Each of the titles picked by the duchess will be highlighted for a fortnight with information about the book and its author, alongside a Book Club Kit – a set of questions readers can use to explore the themes of the novel and spark discussions with friends.

The kits have been created by the Reading Room book researchers as part of the Lockdown Reading Project, a collaboration between the University of Portsmouth and the University of Copenhagen to study how reading habits are changing in the face of Covid-19.

You can keep up with the latest recommendations at the Reading Room Instagram.