July 11 will be the 50th anniversary of the publishing of To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee's classic novel of justice and injustice in the American South. Did you read it as a kid? If so, it's time you revisited this most perfect of novels. American librarians voted it the greatest novel of the 20th century, and librarians don't often get it wrong.
We own an audio version of To Kill A Mockingbird read by Sissy Spacek--sounds like a great listen for this summer, or any other summer.
In the near future, look for lots of articles mining what's known about the reclusive Ms. Lee, who has never published another novel since 1960. Our loss, for sure.
An article on Harper Lee from Britain's Guardian (with link to the original interview):
in 1964 when she told the author Roy Newquist that she "never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird"."It was like being hit over the head and knocked cold," Lee said. "I didn't expect the book to sell in the first place. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers but at the same time I sort of hoped that maybe someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected."
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