Featured Reading Guide
Harper Lee
“Have your say”
Latest Comment
This is a wonderful depiction of the consequences of prejudice and intolerance. Everyone should read this book.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
FacebookAbout Harper Lee
Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama, a village that is still her home. She attended local schools and the University of Alabama. Before she started writing, she lived in New York and worked in the reservations department of an international airline. She has been awarded the Pulitzer prize, two honorary degrees and various other literary and library awards. Her chief interests apart from writing are nineteenth-century literature and eighteenth-century music, travelling, and watching politicians and cats.
topHarper Lee interview/review
Extract taken from Roy Newquist’s collection of interviews, Counterpoint, published in 1964 by Rand McNally
- How would you define your own objectives as a writer?
Well, my objectives are very limited. I want to do the best I can with the talent God gave me. I hope to goodness that every novel I do gets better and better, not worse and worse. I would like, however, to do one thing… I would like to leave some record of the kind of life that existed in a very small world. I hope to do this in several novels, to chronicle something that seems to be very quickly going down the drain. This is small-town middle-class southern life as opposed to the Gothic, as opposed to Tobacco Road, as opposed to plantation life.
As you know, the South is still made up of thousands of tiny towns. There is a very definite social pattern in these towns that fascinates me. I think it is a rich social pattern. I would simply like to put down all I know about this because I believe that there is something universal in this little world, something decent to be said for it, and something to lament in its passing.
In other words all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama.
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Much is made of Scout being a tomboy. How is female identity dealt with in the novel?
- Jem says that there are four sets of people in the world but Scout disagrees. What does the novel say about class, breeding and social standing in the deep south of America in this period?
- “You never really understand a person…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” How does Atticus’s advice resound throughout the book?
- Whilst certainly sympathetic to black people, is the novel also patronising towards them? Are the black characters more stereotypical than the white?
- What does the scene in which Atticus shoots the mad dog tell us about him (other than his being a good shot)? Does this episode mirror other events in the novel?
- “It’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird.” Which character or characters does the Mockingbird symbolise?
Other Books by Harper Lee
To Kill A Mockingbird
Shoot all the Bluejays you want, if you can hit em, but remember it s a sin…
To Kill A Mockingbird: 50th…
‘Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit em, but remember it s a sin…
Suggested Further Reading
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings ~ Maya Angelou
- Cider With Rosie ~ Laurie Lee
- Snow Falling on Cedars ~ David Guterson
- A Capote Reader ~ Truman Capote
- The Bluest Eye ~ Toni Morrison
This is a wonderful depiction of the consequences of prejudice and intolerance. Everyone should read this book.
Posted by Michael on 2010-07-13
I read this – To Kill a Mocking Bird – many, many moons ago., and have a copy in my library. My hope is that the book you are promoting will be the full version and not a edited down one.
This is not just about racial points of view, but is also a thriller and a court room drama, with great child characters. Take it slowly to savour the whole atmosphere and the time of the action too.
Much has not changed – you will know that when you watch or watched a tv documentary last night with the comments of a very bigoted man to the coloured election candidate.
To be greatly recommended to readers of all ages.
Posted by viviennebentley on 2010-06-07