Her Majesty Queen Camilla’s charity, The Queen’s Reading Room, has announced the return of its highly anticipated flagship event The Queen’s Reading Room Festival, which boasts a world-famous line-up and brand new venue for its 2025 event - Chatsworth in Derbyshire.

The charity, launched by The Queen in 2023, works in the UK and beyond to celebrate and promote the transformative power of books. Its groundbreaking neuroscience examines the connection between regular reading and improved wellbeing, while its events have reached more than 20,000 people in the past two years alone. The charity reaches more than 12 million people in 174 countries. 

The star-studded literary line-up at this year’s Queen’s Reading Room Festival will see Lorraine Kelly interview Rivals author Jilly Cooper, whilst Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding and Me Before You author Jojo Moyes will discuss the process of writing stories full of love and hope. Julia Quinn, author of the Bridgerton series, will take part in a special Bridgerton discussion panel. Legendary actor Celia Imrie will also join the line-up to interview Thursday Murder Club author and presenter Richard Osman, whilst journalist Reeta Chakrabarti will interview Assembly author Natasha Brown. 

Samantha Shannon, Sarah Winman, Joanna Cannon, Kristin Hannah, Peter James, Rupert Everett, Robert Harris, Peter Frankopan, Sebastian Faulks, Lady Anne Glenconner, Gyles Brandreth, Sarah Waters and Alan Titchmarsh have also been confirmed to take to the Festival stage as part of a suite of world-class literary programming. 

The Festival, which sold nearly 20,000 tickets in its first two year tenure at Hampton Court Palace, will this September move to Chatsworth in Derbyshire, the famous backdrop for the film adaptation of Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, released twenty years ago almost to the day.

Above: Jilly Cooper, Richard Osman, Julia Quinn, Peter James, Helen Fielding, Robert Harris, Sebastian Faulks, Sarah Winman, Peter Frankopan, Kristin Hannah, Jojo Moyes, and Samantha Shannon.

In 2023 and 2024, The Queen’s Reading Room Festival attracted audiences from as far away as The United States and Canada as well as Australia and New Zealand. It is hoped that the move to Chatsworth will offer more audiences across the UK the opportunity to attend, whilst also offering a unique historic experience for overseas visitors. 

Vicki Perrin, Chief Executive of The Queen’s Reading Room said:

‘After the success of last year’s Queen’s Reading Room Festival which saw us fill over 10,000 seats in a single day, we are delighted to be bringing our flagship event back for 2025 - this time to the magical surrounds of Chatsworth. 

As a charity, we are committed to ensuring that everybody can access our events. We are therefore so excited by the opportunity of connecting with more audiences in the UK at Chatsworth and are immensely grateful to Chatsworth House Trust for hosting us - it’s clear that, like us, they are deeply committed to championing creativity and the joy of books. 

Whether you’re a fan of romance or fantasy, crime fiction or historical fiction - there really is something for everybody at The Queen’s Reading Room Festival and we can’t wait to see you there!’

Jane Marriott, Director of Chatsworth House Trust said: 

‘We are delighted to welcome The Queen’s Reading Room Festival to Chatsworth, and to share this exciting celebration of storytelling with our local communities and guests from across the UK and the world.  We often say that Chatsworth is more than a house; it’s a place of creativity and community, learning and ideas.  This partnership between our two charities demonstrates how true this is, and we can’t wait for the festival to begin.’

To mark the 250th anniversary of novelist Jane Austen, the festival will open with a special screening of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ in the Chatsworth Garden. Over the course of the weekend, visitors will also be able to immerse themselves in Austen’s life and legacy at a pop-up exhibition of Austen artefacts, curated especially for The Queen’s Reading Room by Jane Austen’s House Museum, before rounding off their weekend with a showing of Emma Thompson's adaptation of ‘Sense and Sensibility’, also in the garden, on Saturday evening. As in 2023 and 2024, visitors to this year’s festival will once again enjoy author book signings. 

The Queen’s Reading Room Community outreach:

In November 2024, The Queen’s Reading Room launched its very first book donation station, resulting in more than 1,000 book donations, which were donated to the library trolley service at The Friends of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. 

Following this, The Queen’s Reading Room will host a dedicated Festival book drop-off point during The Queen’s Reading Room Festival at Chatsworth, where visitors can donate the books they have enjoyed, for other readers to enjoy. 

Visitors will be encouraged to pay it forward by leaving a kind message for the next reader, and all books will be donated to local charities and reading initiatives in the surrounding area. 

The Queen’s Reading Room book donation projects highlight the transformative effect that reading can have and showcase how literature can unite, inspire and bring communities together. 

The link between reading and social connection is something The Queen’s Reading Room is committed to better understanding, having published its first neuroscientific study into the link between reading fiction and wellbeing in March 2024. The pioneering study used portable brain scans and galvanic skin testing on participants as they read excerpts from novels, and proved that just 5 minutes of reading can reduce stress levels by almost 20%, improve concentration and focus by as much as 11% and enable readers to feel better connected to each other.

The full Queen’s Reading Room Festival programme can be found here. 

Above: Alan Titchmarsh, Lady Anne Glenconner, Rupert Everett, Natasha Brown, Gyles Brandreth, Sarah Waters, Reeta Chakrabarti, Hallie Rubenhold, Joanna Cannon, Lizzie Dunford (Jane Austen’s House Museum), Fran Baker (Chatsworth), and Steve Porter (Chatsworth). 

About The Queen's Reading Room

The Queen’s Reading Room, launched by Her Majesty Queen Camilla in 2023, is a charity championing literature in the UK and beyond.

Through groundbreaking neuroscientific research, it seeks to discover and celebrate the unique power of books to improve brain health, mental health and social connection. Its first study using brain scans and skin conductance tests found that just five minutes of reading fiction both reduces stress by nearly 20% and improves the brain’s capacity to manage stress; all while boosting concentration and focus and reducing feelings of loneliness.

The charity seeks to promote the accessibility and joy of stories and storytelling and it reaches more than twelve million people in 174 countries around the world each year with its free, educational content around books; as well staging major festivals and events around the UK and internationally. The charity was born from an Instagram book club launched in lockdown of 2021.

The Queen’s Reading Room is proud to partner with a range of charities to help bring books, authors and stories to everyone. Because books make life better.

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