Speaking to a crowd of literary figures and festival-goers, Camilla said she founded the Queen’s Reading Room after a pandemic‑era Instagram book club and that the initiative now connects a global community of millions in more than 180 countries, swapping recommendations and donating thousands of books to women’s refuges and homeless shelters.
The queen’s remarks came on the heels of a series of damning excerpts from Earl Spencer’s new memoir about his sister, Diana, Princess of Wales, which allege misconduct by King Charles. Buckingham Palace described the response as “unprecedented,” noting that “the pain of fraternal grief can cloud reason.”
Spencer, in turn, accused the king of “gaslighting” the palace’s reaction, telling the Mail on Sunday that “it was not every day you wake up to find you’ve been gaslit by the king.” He added that the memoir’s claims were “astonishingly provocative and below the belt.” The BBC is scheduled to broadcast a full interview with Spencer on Sunday.
Camilla will also appear in the BBC Arts documentary series The Book That Changed My Life, due to air on BBC Two on 14 October as part of the National Year of Reading 2026. The film will follow her meeting four individuals whose lives were transformed by reading at moments of crisis, and will explore emerging scientific evidence on the health benefits of books.
During the festival, Camilla revealed four autumn reading picks – Reeta Chakrabarti’s Finding Belle, Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ann Patchett’s Whistler and Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Sashenka – and mingled with authors such as Lee Child and Elif Shafak in the Sculpture Gallery.
The event underscores Camilla’s long‑standing conviction that literature can offer solace, inspiration and community, a message she hopes will resonate even as the royal family navigates the fallout from Spencer’s memoir.