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To make a Tequila Mockingbird, chill your martini glass and cocktail shaker in the freezer. After half an hour, remove the shaker, throw in a handful of ice, one and a half ounces of tequila, three quarters of an ounce creme de menthe, and the juice of one lime. Shake vigorously, pour into a chilled glass, and garnish with a lime. Best enjoyed on an evening when it’s warm enough to linger on a veranda, but not so hot that ladies are reduced, as Alabama-born author Harper Lee so memorably described, to “soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.”
To Kill a Mockingbird has inspired odder and greater things than the combination of creme de menthe and tequila. July 11, 2010, marked the fiftieth anniversary of Lee’s venerated, controversial, and unavoidable book. Celebrations were everywhere. Special readings and panel discussions took place in locales from Vermont to Alabama to Washington, the 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck in his Oscar-winning role was shown in numerous theaters and libraries across the country, and a bookstore in Santa Cruz, California, hosted a reenactment of the famous courtroom scene. Not even the satirical paper The Onion could resist Mockingbird mania with this spoof headline: “Senate Unable to Get Enough Republican Votes to Honor ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.'” Not everyone, however, was extolling Mockingbird‘s praises. In a June 24, 2010, Wall Street Journal article, “What ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Isn’t,” journalist Allen Barra kicked Harper Lee out of the canon of great Southern writers. He called Atticus a “repository of cracker-barrel epigrams” and the book as a whole “a sugar-coated myth of Alabama’s past that millions have come to accept.” Though Barra argued that Mockingbird’s “bloodless liberal humanism is sadly dated,” last summer’s celebrations showed how great a hold it has on readers’ memories and their hearts.
Now that the anniversary hoopla has subsided, will this classic that was never meant to be a blockbuster–or a children’s book, for that matter–be quietly retired? No. If anything, the fiftieth anniversary reminds us how this book has become so much more than a book. It has generated not just a cocktail but song lyrics, band names, and children’s and dogs’ names, and myriad young adult books have been inspired by its power. Mockingbird has become a part of the public subconscious, a literary and a cultural touchstone.
To attend high school in the United States is to be required to read Mockingbird. First published in 1960, this novel shocked its debut author and her publisher when it won the Pulitzer Prize and became a best seller. Since then, Mockingbird has sold nearly one million copies a year, and for the past five years has been the second-best-selling backlist title in the country. (Eat your hearts out, Stephenie Meyer and J. K. Rowling.) But how did Mockingbird become a book for youth? Is it because the narrator, Scout, is a young tomboy? Or is it because the novel is both a bildungsroman and a suspenseful courtroom drama? Or was Mockingbird eventually labeled a children’s book simply because Flannery O’Connor mused, “It’s interesting that all the folks that are buying it don’t know they are reading a children’s book”? Given Mockingbird‘s cultural permeation and multigenerational readership, it appears to be a true example of a “book for all ages.”
Mockingbird‘s hold on grown-up minds is certainly evident in the many pop-culture allusions, both obvious and subtle, to Lee’s only book. Celebrity magazine readers are probably aware that Demi Moore and Bruce Willis named their daughter Scout after Lee’s precocious protagonist. Watchers of the television show Gilmore Girls probably caught the literary reference when Rory says that “every town needs as many Boo Radleys as they can get.” And Simpsons viewers young and old undoubtedly laughed when Homer complained about reading: “Books are useless! I only ever read one book, To Kill a Mockingbird, and it gave me absolutely no insight on how to kill mockingbirds! Sure it taught me not to judge a man by the color of his skin… but what good does that do me?”
Mockingbird has also entered the twitterverse via Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less by Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin. Aciman and Rensin have Scout narrate as @BooScout in a voice condensed to short, often snarky observations. Here’s @BooScout’s response to Atticus’s advice that to understand a person you must put yourself in his shoes: “Why does Dad say such LAME shit? I don’t want to walk a mile in ANYONE else’s shoes. Toe jam, nail fungus, athlete’s foot anybody? Gosh.” High literature Twitterature is not, but anyone who has studied Mockingbird with a long-winded lecturer will appreciate @BooScout’s humor and brevity: “Went to the trial. Tom seems innocent. Also, it occurs that our town is full of racists. Perhaps only the eyes of a child can see the truth.”
Beyond pop culture, Mockingbird has long provided the legal arena with both inspiration and fodder for discussion. Atticus’s courtroom defense of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman, is the subject of law school classes and law review articles. Would Atticus’s argument that Tom physically couldn’t have harmed Mayella Ewell hold water in a contemporary courtroom? Does Atticus deserve our veneration? In his August 10, 2009, New Yorker article “The Courthouse Ring,” Malcolm Gladwell takes Atticus to task for his legal performance. Gladwell argues that instead of challenging the racist status quo, Atticus simply encourages jurors “to swap one of their prejudices for another.” He also finds Atticus’s decision to have Scout lie about what actually happened the night Bob Ewell attacked her and her brother Jem problematic: “Understand what? That her father and the Sheriff have decided to obstruct justice in the name of saving their beloved neighbor the burden of angel-food cake?” Whether Atticus is a brilliant attorney or a courtroom wimp, the fact that Gladwell and legal scholars are even debating his aptitude with the seriousness they might read Supreme Court decisions speaks of Mockingbird‘s clout.
Like its impact on pop culture, Mockingbird‘s presence in literature is a combination of overt tributes and almost subconscious allusions. In Scout, Atticus & Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird (2010), author Mary McDonagh Murphy interviews writers, journalists, and artists from Oprah Winfrey to Tom Brokaw about how Mockingbird affected their lives. Her interviews with authors including James Patterson, Adriana Trigiani, and Lizzie Skurnick exemplify how this classic, though often read in childhood, can have a lasting hold on writers. Patterson loved it because he identified with Jem and “the suspense was unusual in terms of books that I had read at that point, books that … had really powerful drama which really did hook you. Obviously I try to do [that] with my books.” Skurnick, author of Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, recalls Scout being more fascinating than the “grand themes of justice” in the second half of the book. Everyone interviewed, regardless of vocation, has a story about how Mockingbird touched him or her in a memorable way.
Young adult books such as Jan Marino’s 1997 novel Searching for Atticus and Loretta Ellsworth’s 2007 In Search of Mockingbird are
unabashed love letters to Mockingbird and maybe even Harper Lee herself. Both books feature teenage girls who set out on quests of self-discovery with Mockingbird as their inspiration. In Atticus, Tessa Ramsey tries to reconnect with her surgeon father who has returned from the Vietnam War, while in In Search of Mockingbird Erin runs away from Minnesota to find the reclusive author of her favorite book. Also Known as Harper (2009) by Ann Haywood Leal, National Book Award winner Mockingbird (2010) by Kathryn Erskine, and The Mockingbirds (2010) by Daisy Whitney pay homage to Harper Lee, with varying degrees of genuflection and success.The impact of To Kill a Mockingbird on a text is not always apparent from the title. Sometimes the novel is used in a story as a character litmus test: if a protagonist is reading it and loves it, readers know he or she is a good person–extra points if the copy is dog-eared and not required homework reading. In a similar vein, though Atticus might not be named in a text, it is hard not to think of him in any middle-grade or young adult novel with a courtroom setting. (Monster by Walter Dean Myers and John Grisham’s foray into children’s books Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer come to mind.)
It’s even harder, if not impossible, to see words closely resembling mockingbird on a page and not think of Lee’s work. Suzanne Collins, whether intentionally or not, recalls To Kill a Mockingbird with her mockingjay creature in the Hunger Games trilogy. In the final book of the series, Mockingjay, Collins’s protagonist Katniss describes a mockingjay, a combination of a (fictional) jabberjay and a mockingbird, as “the symbol of the revolution” and goes on to explain why she must represent the mockingjay herself and “become the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution.” Katniss’s understanding of the emblematic importance of the mockingjay brings to mind Scout’s discussion with Miss Maudie Atkinson about why she should never shoot a mockingbird: “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
To Kill a Mockingbird is perhaps our foremost example of the private reading experience writ larger by its communal–and now multigenerational–replication. Fans and the indifferent alike can remember when and where they were when they read the book, voluntarily or not, for the first time. Recollection of that memory of reading, perhaps even more than the book itself, is the reason To Kill a Mockingbird has become an enduring metaphor for justice, goodness, and the bittersweetness of growing up.
From the May/June 2011 issue of The Horn Book Magazine. See also “From the Guide: More Mockingbird.”
The post A Second Look: The Long Life of a Mockingbird appeared first on The Horn Book.
The world has been mourning the passing of Harper Lee. President Barack Obama (pictured, via) wrote a post on Facebook to praise the To Kill a Mockingbird author.
Here’s an excerpt from Obama’s post: “Ms. Lee changed America for the better. And there is no higher tribute we can offer her than to keep telling this timeless American story – to our students, to our neighbors, and to our children – and to constantly try, in our own lives, to finally see each other.”
Many members of the publishing industry have also spoken out in remembrance of Lee including HarperCollins publisher Michael Morrison, literary agent Andrew Nurnberg, and Amazon Books editorial director Sara Nelson. Do you have a favorite quote from To Kill a Mockingbird or Go Set a Watchman?
A theatrical production of To Kill a Mockingbird will open on Broadway. Scott Rudin, a famed producer, has acquired the stage adaptation rights.
According to Playbill, Aaron Sorkin, an Oscar-winning screenwriter, has agreed to adapt Harper Lee’s beloved novel for the script. Bartlett Sher, a Tony Award-winning director, has signed on to take the helm of this show.
The Wall Street Journal reports that “the move marks a reversal for Lee, who after To Kill a Mockingbird was published told her agent she didn’t want there to be a Broadway adaptation of the novel, according to correspondence in the archives of her former agent at Columbia University.” Last year, Lee shocked fans with a To Kill a Mockingbird sequel entitled Go Set a Watchman. HarperCollins published that book in July 2015. (via The New York Times)
The New York Public Library (NYPL) has unveiled its list of “Top Book Check Outs of 2015.” Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult has claimed the top spot.
Some of the titles include The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. The organization has also revealed six additional lists such as “Top 10 Books in Manhattan,” “Top 10 Books in Staten Island,” and “Top Books by Branch in the Bronx.”
Here’s more from the press release: “Individual branches saw a wide variety of books checked out the most, from Henry A. Clumpton’s The Art of Intelligence Lessons from a Life in the CIA’s Clandestine Service at City Island Library in the Bronx, to Prodigal Son by Danielle Steel at South Beach Library in Staten Island…Over 20 million items, including books, are circulated throughout the NYPL system each year. Opportunities to check out items will be even greater in 2016, when hours expand at branches across the system thanks to a $43 million city funding increase for New York’s three public library systems: NYPL, Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Library.”
Barnes & Noble has unveiled its “Best Books of 2015″ picks.
Some of the titles include The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Last Ever After by Soman Chainani, and Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. The bookseller’s list features several different categories such as “Bestselling Books with Staying Power,” “Books That Will Make You Laugh,” and “Hoping for a Movie.”
Here’s more from the press release: “Spanning serious literature to pop culture sensations, the nation’s largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products has identified the books that got people talking, debating, laughing, imagining and reading through the night…Barnes & Noble has compiled this year’s lists based on proprietary criteria, most notably the trendspotting expertise of its booksellers in nearly 650 stores nationwide who converse daily with customers.”
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins has been named the bestselling book of 2015 on Amazon.
In addition to its bestselling books of the year list, the e-commerce company has revealed the titles that made it onto the bestselling kids & teens book of the year, and the most gifted books of the year. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School by Jeff Kinney claimed the number one spot on the kids & teens book list. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee nabbed the top spot on the most gifted book list.
Sara Nelson, the editorial director of Books and Kindle at Amazon.com, gave this statement in the press release: “What this list suggests is that Amazon customers like to be entertained—and scared! The creepy thriller The Girl on the Train is our best-selling book of the year, hands down, but Silent Scream, 14th Deadly Sin and Luckiest Girl Alive are no slouches in the category, either. It’s great to see The Nightingale perform so well; it suggests that readers continue to come back to novels about WWII, as long as they deliver stories of people and the difficult decisions that war makes them make.”
Amazon’s Top 20 Bestsellers in 2015
| 01. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins |
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11. 14th Deadly Sin (Women’s Murder Club) by James Patterson with Maxine Paetro |
| 02. Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian by E.L. James |
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12. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School by Jeff Kinney |
| 03. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee |
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13. Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest and Coloring Book by Johanna Basford |
| 04. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah |
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14. The Wright Brothers by David McCullough |
| 05. Memory Man by David Baldacci |
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15. Adult Coloring Book: Stress Relieving Patterns by Blue Star Coloring |
| 06. Make Me: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Child |
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16. The Liar by Nora Roberts |
| 07. Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham |
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17. Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll |
| 08. The Girl in the Spider’s Web: Millennium Series by David Lagercrantz |
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18. The Crossing by Michael Connelly |
| 09. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson |
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19. The Stranger by Harlan Coben |
| 10. Silent Scream by Angela Marsons |
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20. A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler |
While I won’t deny I’ve been beside myself with anticipation awaiting the release of Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman, I’ve simultaneously been terrified about how it might read, for the publishers announced it would be printed in its organic, unedited form. Go Set A Watchman is, after all, a kind of first draft rejected […]
I fell instantly in love with this book though. Having done a re-read of To Kill A Mockingbird in preparation I instantly fell into step with the voice of Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch. At 26 years old the character we already know is all there, which makes sense because this is the same character, at […]
Forget what you’ve read and/or assume about Go Set a Watchman. It is not a “first draft” of To Kill a Mockingbird. And while it may not narrowly meet the definition of sequel, it sure reads like one: a new story, set decades later, with most of the same characters. Indeed, it really feels like the writer of this book assumes readers are familiar with the events and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird. Yes, there are inconsistencies, huge ones, which indicate it was not written after final edits to Mockingbird. But it mostly works as a sequel.
Also, Go Set a Watchman is not remotely, as NPR suggested (and many people suspected), “a mess.” It pleasurable reading, with Lee’s talent for dry humor and poetic description, and her unmatched ability to write perspicaciously about her own terrain. There are some uneven transitions, overlong conversations that could be trimmed (the mansplaining in this book!), and the aforementioned inconsistencies with Mockingbird, but it is not far from the polished sequel that might have been, if Lee had wanted to pursue it. I wonder how much of the decision not to publish this, as is, has more to do with anxiety over how the (white) reading public would receive it, than a judgment on its literary quality? And I wonder if Lee’s decision to abstain had more to do with roiling her community than feeling the manuscript was not up to snuff and beyond salvation?
Now to the touchy spot. The Atticus Finch in Go Set a Watchman is a continuation of the one we love from Mockingbird. It is not a different Atticus, or a different draft of Atticus. Sorry, folks. This is Atticus. Harper Lee goes out of her way to show us that the Atticus in Watchman is every inch the Atticus of Mockingbird. And, as you have probably read, in Wathman Atticus is a bigot.
Keep in mind that even the Mockingbird-era Atticus is a man of his time and place. His attitude toward black people is kind but paternalistic. He maintains his idealism in the courthouse, but the black people he has in his house are servants. He is a perfect example of the white moderate of good will, the kind Martin Luther King described as “the biggest stumbling block” to equality. This new Atticus does fit with that one; he may not fit with the one in your head but he fits with the one in the book.
Early reviewers dropped a “Snape kills Dumbledore” sized spoiler on the reading public, but the reviewers didn’t tell you this: it is supposed to be shocking. It is absolutely devastating to Jean Louise (aka Scout) when she finds out what her father has become. If we feel the soil give way beneath our feet, it’s because that’s exactly what Lee intended to do to us. I’m sorry you had to find out that way. I’m sorry I had to find out that way.
But it’s important for us to accept that this is our beloved Atticus Finch, and not some Bizarro world Atticus Finch, because racism is not just enacted by the uneducated, trashy Ewells of the world. It is also enacted by genteel and well-educated whites, even ones with lofty principles. Jean Louise discovers her father at his racist meeting among “men of substance and character, responsible men, good men. Men of all varieties and reputations.” She hides and listens to the filth spew from their mouths. None spews from her father’s mouth, at this meeting, but he doesn’t speak up. She thinks: “Did that make it less filthy? No, it condoned.”
This is a necessary message, and a necessary postscript to To Kill a Mockingbird. Racism is enacted by kind, polite people. Silence is sanction. If this is not the same Atticus, and if this is not a sequel, there is utterly no point to the book. The book is about Scout, now grown, coming to terms with the frailties of her own origins. Everywhere she goes, all of the people she meets, the people she loves, veer into racist diatribes. Is she of these people, she asks herself? Are these the people she loves? When she describes herself as color blind, it is not to hint that she doesn’t “see color,” in that late 20th Century trope, but that she has been blind to the true nature of her community. To be honest, even Jean Louise’s own New York-influenced high mindedness falls short of 2015 standards (but she’s getting there, her own ideas evolving even in the text.)
This book is a time capsule; perhaps its most glaring deficit in that regard is that Lee could not know how iconic Atticus and Scout would be decades later, how much we would want Atticus to remain a pillar of progressive ethics. Lee writes about him as if he were a mere human character. Perhaps the idealized Atticus Finch is another southern flag that needs to be lowered.
I won’t belabor this point, but I want to set the record straight on the book itself. Go Set a Watchman is not a mess, nor is it a sloppy draft. Read as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, it has powerful and necessary truths, even ones that make us uncomfortable. It deepens and complicates our understanding of To Kill a Mockingbird, and though it is imperfect, it is no stain on Lee’s legacy.
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The book everyone is talking about. The book no one thought they would ever see. Fifty Five years after To Kill A Mockingbird we have a sequel…. Firstly I think it is really important to remember the context of this book while reading it. This book was written before To Kill A Mockingbird. Before all […]
Having sat unpublished for over half a century, the release of Harper Lee's first novel, set 20 years after To Kill a Mockingbird, is truly a literary event. Go Set a Watchman offers an illuminating look at familiar characters and places (Jean Louise Scout, Atticus, the town of Maycomb) transformed by time. Be among the [...]
In anticipation of the new Harper Lee novel, Go Set A Watchman, (out July 14) I decided it was the perfect time for a re-read of To Kill A Mockingbird. I don’t think I’ve read the book since high school and the movie is still so dominant in my mind so it was a great […]
The team at PBS American Masters have updated a 2012 documentary on Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Harper Lee. According to an announcement on Facebook, the film will feature thoughts and comments from high-profile figures including Oprah Winfrey, Rosanna Cash, and Tom Brokaw.
Deadline.com reports that producer Mary McDonagh Murphy paid a personal visit to Lee in Monroeville, AL. During that meeting the 89 year old writer was presented with a new copy of the highly anticipated To Kill a Mockingbird sequel, Go Set a Watchman.
An airing will take place on Friday, July 10th from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Click here to watch a short preview from this nonfiction movie.
Which books do you like to bring with you when you go on vacation? The Fly Abu Dhabi team has created an infographic to showcase The Ultimate Holiday Reads by Destination.
The image features several beloved books including One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. We’ve embedded the full piece below for you to explore further—what do you think?
I’m a bit put out at Canada right now. They’ve got some nasty forest fires burning and all the smoke is blowing down here to Minneapolis. It is so bad that when I left work this afternoon it looked like a fog had settled over the city. It also smells terrible. While standing outside for 20 minutes waiting for my late bus, it became harder to breathe and my eyes began to burn. Now, indoors, I’m fine but for a headache that will not go away. The state has declared an air quality emergency and is discouraging people from going outdoors. I like you Canada. You are a good neighbor and I know a number of people who were born and raised Canadian and some of my favorite authors are Canadian. But, really, keep your smoke to yourselves! Get those fires out, won’t you? It’s hard to breathe down here! Your consideration is much appreciated.
And maybe I am only using it as an excuse to put off writing about The Art of Daring by Carl Phillips yet one more day because it is such a good book I don’t know what to say about it. Or maybe it’s just because it is Monday and it was a long and busy day at work following my full and glorious three-day Independence Day holiday weekend. Or maybe I’m just extra tired because Dickens has been an annoying cat lately, yowling at 3 a.m. for attention and even though he doesn’t get any, he keeps trying. I purposely did not have children and have enjoyed many years of good sleeping as a result. Dickens is swiftly reversing this and I don’t exactly know why.
I am behind on my internet and blog wanderings so it is quite possible all of you already heard about the latest development in the Harper Lee Go Set a Watchman saga. Apparently, the manuscript was found in 2011, not last year. And supposedly it was found in Harper Lee’s Safe Deposit box at the bank, not attached to an old manuscript of To Kill a Mockingbird in the publisher’s files.
The whole thing just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser, doesn’t it? I’m not sure what to think or who to believe. By a number of accounts, Go Set a Watchman has always been considered a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. Why then, would Harper Lee, who has said she will never publish anything else, want to see this book published? Is she in need of money to pay her medical bills and nursing home care? Are the publishers pulling a fast one? Go Set a Watchman has the most pre-orders of any of the publisher’s books, ever. It is likely going to be a bestseller the day it goes on sale July 14th. Everyone involved is going to make a pot of cash. How much will Harper Lee get of it I wonder?
I have not pre-ordered the book. I have no plans to buy it or wait in line at the library for it. I am not entirely certain I want to read it. The whole thing smells fishy and I don’t feel comfortable reading the book because of that. Maybe one year, five years, ten years from now I will change my mind, but at the moment, I just can’t. Plus there is the hype which turns me off. And then of course, there is the fear that the beauty that is To Kill a Mockingbird might somehow be tainted if this new book is nowhere near as good.
What about you? Do you plan on reading Go Set a Watchman? Did you pre-order it? And what do you think of all the controversy swirling around it? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill and should just get over it already?
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Mary Badham, the actress who portrayed young Scout Finch in the 1962 film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, will celebrate the release of Go Set a Watchman at a reading event. She plans to read from both the first Harper Lee novel and the highly anticipated sequel.
This event is scheduled to take place on July 14 at the 92Y in New York. For those who can’t make it in-person, it will also be broadcast live on the organization’s website.
Badham gave this statement in the press release: “Of course at age 10 I wasn’t aware of the impact Mockingbird had at the time, or the impact the film would have later, but it has been a special part of my life ever since. Now I am really excited about Watchman and being able to share it with Miss Nelle’s loyal and passionate fans.”
Here are some literary events to pencil in your calendar this week.
To get your event posted on our calendar, visit our Facebook Your Literary Event page. Please post your event at least one week prior to its date.
Tamara Ireland Stone will celebrate the launch of her book Every Last Word with a party at Books of Wonder. Join in on Wednesday, June 17th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. (New York, NY)
Four writers, Adele Wildman, Susan Dominus, Radhika Jones and Lizzie Skurnick, will appear for the “A YA Map of NY” panel at McNally Jackson. Meet them on Wednesday, June 17th starting 7 p.m. (New York, NY)
Barnes & Noble (the Union Square branch) invites Harper Lee fans to participate in the To Kill a Mockingbird Page and Screen Discussion. Check it out on Thursday, July 18th starting 7 p.m. (New York, NY)
Presales of Harper Lee‘s second novel Go Set a Watchman are off the charts and the excitement about the upcoming release has many people rereading Lee’s classic work To Kill a Mockingbird in preparation.
Barnes & Noble is encouraging this enthusiasm by hosting a To Kill a Mockingbird event day across its stores and online on June 18th.
“Helped by our unique series of customer events, excitement is building at Barnes & Noble for Go Set a Watchman and we are still seeing strong pre-orders of the book in-store and online,” stated Mary Amicucci, vp, Adult Trade and Children’s Books at Barnes & Noble. “We expect this to be the number one book when it lands in July, and for this book we have placed one of the largest initial store orders of any adult trade book in Barnes & Noble history.”
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, is the bestselling pre-order book that HarperCollins has ever seen.
Robert Thomson, chief executive of Harper Collins parent company News Corp., revealed this news to The Guardian. He would not reveal sales figures but did say that the book won’t have a ton of marketing. Here is an excerpt:
Thomson said: \"I’m not going to make a sales forecast, it’s inappropriate, but it’s going to be a big book. It won’t need a huge amount of marketing, it will have a certain amount of marketing. Most people in America have read To Kill a Mockingbird.
Author Harper Lee has launched a nonprofit organization called the Mockingbird Company. AL.com reports that it will coordinate yearly performances of the To Kill a Mockingbird stage adaptation in Lee’s Alabama hometown.
Prior to this development, the executives behind the Dramatic Publishing Co. refused to extend the performance rights. After Lee stepped in, an announcement was made on the Dramatic Publishing Co.’s Facebook page that the “Mockingbird Company will produce the play in Monroeville beginning in 2016.”
Here’s more from The Independent: “A Facebook page was called Save Monroeville’s To Kill a Mockingbird play was set up to bring attention to the issue and help keep the play in Lee’s hometown. The page garnered support from around 4,000 people and even big names such as Oprah and J.K. Rowling.” (via The Huffington Post)
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