Book recommendation of the day

I re-read Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader for a spur-of-the-moment detour by our faculty/staff/student book discussion group (we were completely demoralized by two months of Haruki Murakami's short stories) and was reminded of how completely awesome it is. (And short! It's a novella! With big type and wide margins!)

The premise is that Queen Elizabeth stumbles upon a bookmobile outside of the palace one day and falls in love with reading, to the point where she's blowing off her royal duties to get back to her book. Her family and staff feel threatened, her loyal subjects are confused (she keeps asking them what they're reading), and the Queen herself starts to wonder what else she's been missing out on. It's completely British and impossibly funny--and a little poignant too. (And short! Did I mention short?)