Skip to main content

Remembering Scout

By
 
Recently, a signed first edition of To Kill a Mockingbird sold for nearly $10,000 at Abebooks.  The novel celebrated 50 years in print in 2010.  It is one of the most revered books in American literature and still resonates with many readers today.

"I can honestly say I learnt more about human rights from To Kill a Mockingbird than all the law books in the world. I first read it when I was 12, then studied it at school. So much of what I believe about people and values is promoted in the simple but powerful story of Atticus Finch, who tirelessly defends a black man in the Deep South on the false charge of rape. At its heart it's really about three basic values: dignity, equality and fairness." 

Shami Chakrabarti, Human-rights lawyer and director of Liberty


Comments

  1. TripplerJune 3, 2011 at 4:10 PM

    Great post.

    Makes me wonder if this shouldn't be our next reading. I'm going thru Downey (re Perkins), am troubled by its small print, and find it a tad dull. But will keep at it as long as I can.

    I remember reading Lee in high school. The movie with Gregory Peck was awesome as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. James FergusonJune 3, 2011 at 6:06 PM

    If there is more interest in Mockingbird, I'm fine with that.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJune 9, 2011 at 9:38 AM

    Okay that was bosox18d/jabel and thanks James for pointing that out.I was getting an endless cycle of back to the password page trying to post under my moniker the past week.Wonder if this all goes back to the Google/Facebook thing

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJune 9, 2011 at 9:40 AM

    Posting as Bosox.As I tried to say several times the past few days I don't recall ever having to read To Kill a Mockingbird in HS and I've only seen the film.

    ReplyDelete
  5. James FergusonJune 9, 2011 at 10:02 AM

    Will send you a new author confirmation, bosox and robert.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJune 10, 2011 at 7:10 AM

    bosox again.I re registered and get the same deal when I try and post under my google ID.Something really messed up on them so at least this works.I'll see if I can actually post a new heading under the google id soon.

    ReplyDelete
  7. TripplerJune 11, 2011 at 2:25 AM

    Found a copy of "Mockingbird" at the library - very quick reading, too. Will have to watch the movie again. Here it is online for free:

    http://www.movie2k.to/To-Kill-a-Mockingbird-watch-movie-603920.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. TripplerJuly 2, 2011 at 11:51 PM

    Still reading "Mockingbird" and am on page 253. Boy, does this bring back memories.

    Did anyone else read the book again?

    ReplyDelete
  9. avrdsJuly 3, 2011 at 12:19 AM

    I picked up a copy, but haven't had time so far to read more than the opening (which is fantastic).

    ReplyDelete
  10. TripplerJuly 6, 2011 at 4:24 PM

    Finally finished the book. What an outstanding piece of literature!

    Does anyone know if this gem is still being used in high schools like we had back in the late 60s? It remains as striking and enlightening as ever. I'm so glad to have read it again.

    Perhaps it is time for me to re-read some old classics as they are timeless.

    ReplyDelete
  11. James FergusonAugust 20, 2011 at 12:44 PM

    Agree Trip! I have to read it again after watching the movie with my wife and small daughter the other night. The little one really enjoyed it, identifying with Scout and caught up in the mystery surrounding Boo. Had to be one of Robert Duvall's first roles. The film was very well done.

    The LOA collection of Flannery O'Connor finally arrived. Plan to read Wise Blood.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
230 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more

The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order

By
A quarter of a century, however, is time enough to dispel some of the myths that have accumulated around the crisis of the early Thirties and the emergence of the New Deal. There is, for example, the myth that world conditions rather than domestic errors and extravagances were entirely responsible for the depression. There is the myth that the depression was already over, as a consequence of the ministrations of the Hoover Administration, and that it was the loss of confidence resulting from the election of Roosevelt that gave it new life. There is the myth that the roots of what was good in the New Deal were in the Hoover Administration - that Hoover had actually inaugurated the era of government responsibility for the health of the economy and the society. There is the contrasting myth (for myths do not require inner consistency) that the New Deal was alien in origins and in philosophy; that - as Mr. Hoover put it - its philosophy was "the same philosophy of government which...
170 comments
Read more