A quiet evening with a good book sounds like the perfect way to unwind. But according to Queen Camilla, reading beside King Charles comes with one distracting habit — and she calls it “very off-putting.”

Away from public engagements and royal duties, King Charles and Queen Camilla share a love of books. Yet enjoying the same pastime does not always mean enjoying it in quite the same way.

For Camilla, reading offers a chance to become completely absorbed in another world. Charles, it seems, sometimes finds something so entertaining that he cannot keep his reaction to himself.

In the BBC Arts documentary The Book That Changed My Life, announced for an October 14 broadcast, Camilla describes how her husband’s laughter can interrupt their otherwise peaceful reading time before dinner.

“I occasionally, when I’m deep in a book, hear him roaring with laughter about something,” she says, according to GB News.

“It’s very off-putting. I can’t get back into my book.”

The remark offers a lighthearted glimpse into their private routine: two people enjoying their books together, until one reader’s amusement breaks the other’s concentration.

Despite the occasional interruption, Camilla describes their shared reading time as “a lovely quiet time.”

A Love of Books That Began in Childhood

For Camilla, reading is much more than a way to fill an evening. Her affection for books began long before royal life, with memories of her father reading aloud to her and her siblings.

“We must’ve been very, very young when my father started reading to us,” she recalls in the documentary, as reported by GB News. “I think that’s where my love of reading came from.”

That early experience helped shape an interest she has carried into adulthood — and one she has encouraged others to discover.

In 2021, she launched The Duchess of Cornwall’s Reading Room, an initiative offering book recommendations and introducing readers to authors and their work. Following her change in title, it became The Queen’s Reading Room.

The initiative also expanded into a podcast, creating another space for conversations about books and the role they play in people’s lives.

Speaking to The Sun, Majesty magazine editor-in-chief Ingrid Seward praised Camilla’s ability to attract prominent guests.

“Camilla’s podcast has been a great success,” Seward said, adding that the Queen could bring leading figures from the arts into the project.

In the documentary, Camilla speaks about literature’s “transformative power” and describes reading as “like the best tonic in the world.”

She also expresses concern about a future without books, saying it would be “a complete and utter tragedy if books went forever.”

Her comments make clear why a sudden burst of laughter might be such an unwelcome interruption when she is lost in a story.

What Older Reports Say About Their Private Arrangements

Camilla’s account of their reading routine is not the first reported glimpse into how the couple spends time away from public view.

In 2017, the Daily Mail reported that Charles and Camilla had separate bedrooms at Clarence House, alongside a shared bedroom they could use whenever they wished.

An unnamed source described individual rooms furnished to each person’s taste and said the arrangement suited them both.

However, that account dates back several years and relied on an anonymous source. It does not establish their current sleeping arrangements.

Camilla’s own remarks offer a more direct picture of one part of their life together: a quiet evening, a book each, and the occasional laugh loud enough to pull her out of the page.

For readers who have ever tried to concentrate beside someone chuckling at their own book, the royal complaint may sound surprisingly familiar.

Do you prefer reading in complete silence, or do you enjoy sharing the moment with someone else? Let us know in the comments.