By Eleanor Dye and Rebecca English Royal Editor
16:31 19 May 2024, updated 18:13 19 May 2024
Queen Camilla‘s Reading Room chart-topping podcast is this week set to return for a second season.
The podcast was launched at the start of this year and is an audio version of Her Majesty’s popular online bookclub, which has 172,000 followers on Instagram.
Her Majesty is renowned for her love of books and the launch comes just weeks after the charity’s research into benefits of reading – and ahead of the Reading Room festival at Hampton Court in July.
Neil Gaiman, Peter James, Kate Mosse and Richard E Grant are among the authors and actors set to feature on the nine-episode season which returns on Monday, May 20.
The first season of the podcast took the charts by storm reaching the top one per cent of podcasts globally at its launch, before spending several consecutive weeks at #1 in the UK arts and books podcast charts with listeners in 158 countries.
While Vicki Perrin, CEO of the Queen’s Reading Room, hosts the podcast, Queen Camilla has pre-recorded her segments.
And this season will see Camilla’s segments appear at the start of the episode rather than at the end as she reveals some of her all-time favourite reads to royal fans.
The first series of The Queen’s Reading Room Podcast featured Rebus author Sir Ian Rankin, actress Dame Joanna Lumley, and comedian David Baddiel and was listened to in 158 countries.
Available weekly from Monday 20th May, the second season of ‘The Queen’s Reading Room Podcast’ will continue to create a space where book lovers – and those who wish to connect more with books – can hear straight from the mouths of literary heroes.
The new season will feature a celebrated literary line-up which boasts American Gods author Neil Gaiman, Labyrinth author Kate Mosse and author of the ‘Roy Grace’ series Peter James, who will invite listeners inside their own reading rooms.
This brand new season will also feature Her Majesty Queen Camilla, who will once again let listeners in on some of her all-time favourite reads.
CEO of The Queen’s Reading Room and podcast host Vicki Perrin said: ‘We were astounded by the response to the first season of The Queen’s Reading Room Podcast.
‘It is clear that the podcast reached and resonated with listeners globally, enabling them to connect and fall in love with books.
‘I hope that this second season of the podcast will continue to inspire listeners to go on new literary adventures and help those wishing they loved books a little more, to discover the true joy of reading.’
Ms Perrin previously added it was not a rival project to Meghan Markle’s Archetypes, which ended after just one series, along with the Sussexes’ multi-million-pound deal with Spotify. The podcast was later renewed with Lemonada Media and given a rebrand.
‘This is a production made in-house with a budget [that is] quite different,’ Ms Perrin said. ‘We are an independent charity and we are thrilled Her Majesty features on the podcast.
‘But it is not her podcast. She is not launching this as a host.’
Earlier this week Queen Camilla once again showed her love for reading, revealing that she dreams of being a student at Hogwarts, as she helped launch a literary festival and attended a decidedly soggy garden party.
Attending the opening of the 35th annual Charleston Festival in Rye, East Sussex, the royal, 76, was asked by local schoolgirl Bess, nine: ‘Are there any fictional places from a book that you would like to travel to and why?’
She replied: ‘One place I think I’d love to go is Hogwarts. I’d like to jump on the Express and I’d like to go to Hogwarts and sit in that wonderful hall and wait for the hat to come round and pick a house for me.
‘I’d like to look at Dumbledore, and Hagrid, and Snape, and see all the pictures going mad and people jumping out of pictures and the food flying about, I think it would be a proper magical experience, and that’s a place I’d really like to go to.’
During the session entitled the ‘Power of Reading’, the Queen delivered an address to around 450 children attending, saying: ‘Good morning everybody, I’m sorry about the weather, I lived in Sussex for many years and it was always sunny.
‘As the proud Patron of Charleston, I am delighted to welcome you to this year’s Literary Festival, in a place rightly described by a previous resident as ‘an earthly paradise’.’
She cited Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of The Secret Garden, as one of her favourite authors and ‘someone, like all of us, who understood the incredible thrill of reading’.
Camilla is an avid reader, patron of a number of literary organisations and has been supporting the children’s writing competition since 2015.
Only in March she endorsed new research that said 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.
