The Book That Changed My Life review – these joyful tales of the power of reading are TV magic
Wonderful, exuberant stories spill out in these honest tales of lives genuinely transformed by literature – while Queen Camilla has an off-with-their-heads moment You have to love a documentary in which Queen Camilla reveals that as a teenager one of her favourite books was The Scarlet Pimpernel because “I was sort of obsessed at that time by the guillotine”. ’I’m sorry, what? Could we back up a moment? I have a few…
Key points
- The Book That Changed My Life, a BBC documentary made with the Open University and the Queen's Reading Room, marks the close of the National Year of Reading.
- Queen Camilla recalls being obsessed with the guillotine as a teenager and calls the tricoteuses in A Tale of Two Cities 'ghastly women'.
- Former prisoner Omar Mentesh and truck driver Peter Lloyd describe how reading transformed and saved their lives.
The Book That Changed My Life, a BBC documentary made in partnership with the Open University and the Queen's Reading Room, marks the close of the National Year of Reading. The film features personal stories about the transformative power of literature, including interviews with Queen Camilla and non-celebrity readers.
Queen Camilla reveals that as a teenager she was obsessed with The Scarlet Pimpernel because of her fascination with the guillotine. She also refers to the tricoteuses in A Tale of Two Cities as 'ghastly women' and shares anecdotes about her husband laughing at Wodehouse and weeping over her father's wartime memoir.
Stories of transformation
Omar Mentesh, a former prisoner, discovered Jack Higgins's The Eagle Has Landed in Feltham prison as a teenager. He says reading allowed him to escape and later to move away from crime. He now delivers literacy workshops in prisons, inspired by Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning.
Peter Lloyd, a truck driver from Liverpool who was born partially deaf, left school unable to read. After his wife persuaded him to take a Read Easy course, his teacher Alison helped him; the first book he read was Harry Potter. He describes the experience as like a boy emerging from under the stairs and becoming a wizard.
Reading … it’s the route out of everything. It’s like abracadabra.
— Omar Mentesh
Other voices in the film
The documentary includes shorter interviews with book lovers from various backgrounds. A woman with pink hair recalls reading Wuthering Heights one word at a time until she felt she was on a moor. A man who didn't read as a child says he only found out authors were dead when he tried to email Oscar Wilde.
A fan of The Girl With the Louding Voice remembers being caught reading at a wedding, noting that the bride was late and there was only so much small talk she could endure.
