For those who enjoyed the book, be aware that Harper Lee is about to publish a follow-up.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/book......2757817/

Fifty years later. Hope it's not a trilogy?

Actually, the book to be released was completed back in the fifties but it was never released.

It features Scout as an adult woman.

:)

I had lunch with John Badham a few weeks ago and his sister, Mary, played Scout in the movie. I'm totally pushing her to star in the next one.

I can't say I'm to excited.

I can, given that "To Kill a Mockingbird" remains one of the greatest American novels ever written.

+1

I know it's a classic, but I just never liked it. Just my opinion of course.

Http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/books/......man.html

From Wikipedia:

In 1966, Lee wrote a letter to the editor in response to the attempts of a Richmond, Virginia, area school board to ban To Kill a Mockingbird as "immoral literature":
“ Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board's activities, and what I've heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read.

Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that To Kill a Mockingbird spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is "immoral" has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink.

I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.[6]

The tone of that letter, which certainly made me smile, made me wonder if Capote had a hand in its authorship.

Http://blog.al.com/live/2012/04/harper_l......h_1.html

Yes, I was referencing that rumour a little - having read everything Capote ever wrote - much of it more than once, I've never thought he wrote Mockingbird.

He writes extraordinarily well but he can't help himself with the !@#$%iness - no matter how subtle and how well hidden - it's always there.

I understand that Harper Lee helped Capote with "In Cold Blood."

Which you're allowed. My kid got it ("Mockingbird") assigned to him for English. He couldn't get through it.
My kid is perfectly capable of reading, btw, he just doesn't seem to be able to follow "dialect" literature.

After reading the NY Times review of "Go Set a Watchman", I suspect a lot of people are going to be a bit disappointed in Harper Lee's first book.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/books/......rts&_r=0

"Shockingly, in Ms. Lee’s long-awaited novel, “Go Set a Watchman” (due out Tuesday), Atticus is a racist who once attended a Klan meeting, who says things like “the Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.” Or asks his daughter: “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?”"

Which may be why she never published it.

She tried to publish it. It was rejected. She was told to try again. Her follow up was published, and I guess that sort of ruled out publishing her earlier novel due to the contradictions. At least until she died and her estate decided to publish.