2025 Reading Challenge discussion
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To Kill a Mockingbird
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To Killl a Mockingbird: Pre-Reading Discussion
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What prompted you to join this group read?Have you read this author before? What do you think of their other books?
I remember that we had to read it in 9th or 10th grade English class.My English teacher loved to movie. It was a black and white one.
I haven’t read this for about 10 years. It’s time for a reread of this masterpiece.And as soon as I read it I will rewatch the movie.
Hey, Boo.
I read this book long ago, in high school of course, and acquired a used copy a couple years ago in my great realization that I remember nothing of my literature classes. Reading the classics as an adult is much more fun than it was the first time around, I might say. Super excited for this one.
I've read this three times, so may pop in but won't be reading it again quite this soon since the last time I read it was in July of this year.
Winter wrote: "What prompted you to join this group read?Have you read this author before? What do you think of their other books?"
I've read this twice before; in high-school, and in 2017 for a buddy read, and I'm currently undecided on whether I want to re-read it a third time. However, I'll probably be checking in on the discussion.
Winter wrote: "What prompted you to join this group read?Have you read this author before? What do you think of their other books?"
Ive read this before and its one of my favorite books i have not read other books from this author
I love Harper Lee. I have read To Kill a Mockingbird before and am looking forward to reading it again. I have also read Truman Capote. I am firmly convinced that Harper Lee did more than just "help research" In Cold Blood--I believe she ghostwrote or co-wrote it. After all, her father refused to support her when she left college to become a writer, and Capote introduced her to the couple that funded her writing and got her an agent. She had every reason to be grateful to him in addition to the fact they had been long-time friends.
Capote was horribly jealous that his friend had won awards for To Kill a Mockingbird, and at that time Harper Lee was, I believe, sympathetic to her old friend and probably willing to help him win an award as well. However, when In Cold Blood (which is clearly written in her style more than his in my opinion) was released and did not win the awards he thought it would, he treated her like mud, slammed her in the press, and hinted that it was actually him who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird.
There has been a lot of analysis between In Cold Blood and To Kill a Mockingbird speculating on whether the same author wrote both because of Capote's claim. Instead, I think they should be analyzing whether In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's (or the last bit of slop he tried to write) were written by the same person.
Harper Lee's father was a lawyer--she studied law before dropping out of college; Capote only had secondhand access to it.
Harper Lee had spent three years working under a developmental editor and learning how to hone her legal fiction. Capote had primarily produced stream of conscious works about society.
Not much is known about Harper Lee's veracity, but Truman Capote was a noted and prolific liar. It would make sense that Capote would lie about helping with Mockingbird.
Shortly after Truman threw Lee under the bus, Lee retired from all writing and Alice stepped forward and kept everyone away from her--acting as a protective wall against all others until her death.
As soon as her sister died. Ms. Carter swooped in and claimed "Go Set a Watchman" was a "second" book. It is widely reported that Harper Lee was "blind, deaf, and would sign anything set in front of her" and that Ms. Carter locked off all access to her after getting her to sign her publishing rights away to the rough draft. It is verified that Harper Lee was blind and deaf when Carter took over.
As a professional freelance writer, I know what developmental editors do to rough drafts. (see https://qz.com/452650/harper-lee-revi...) I have no doubt Go Set a Watchman was Harper Lee's rough draft--and its discovery should have proved to the world once and for all that she was the author of To Kill a Mockingbird. Instead, an inadequate rough draft was published in a rush as if it were an entirely different book by scammers who wanted to make more money off her before she died.
If she had not befriended her agent and been introduced to him by mutual friends, her book might not have ever become what it was. Lee and her editor worked for three years on Go Set a Watchman to turn it into To Kill a Mockingbird. How sad is it that someone took that rough draft and instead of using it to support her and the claim she was the author, they used it to expose her and make money off of her.
Winter wrote: "What prompted you to join this group read?Have you read this author before? What do you think of their other books?"
What prompted you to join this group read?
Well, I nominated the book because I love it and when I was a child and first watched the movie I fell in love with Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck).
Have you read this author before?
Yes. I read "To kill a mockingbird" and yes, "Go set a watchman" too.
What do you think of their other books?
The unnecessary fall of a myth to say it mildly.
I read somewhere that it was a previous work and unpublishable. Fortunately for us, Harper Lee, following the recommendations of her editor, rewrote the story into "To kill a mockingbird"
I have heard about this book a lot. So, I want to explore it.
I'm planning on actually being more active this December because of my winter break being about two weeks! Since I already own this book and we won't be reading it in class (as I originally thought) I'm gonna read it here for my own enjoyment <3
I am considering joining this one. Honestly, I have been trying to get in a group read I was up to, for the last few months, for a prompt for the Bibliopoly yearly challenge, and the books I had wanted to read weren't picked. I have read To Kill a Mockingbird twice, I think, the first time being in junior high. I have a lot of books left this year for the four challenges I'm working on, but if I can get to it, I'd like to read it again because it's been awhile. Looking forward to discussion as well since I have only ever read it on my own.
So great to see so many interested in joining the group read this month! 😊Looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks of it.
I love this book! Read it in high school (18 years ago) and last year again. Looking forward to the discussions!
I just feel that to Kill a Mockingbird is one of those books that I should have already read by now and I haven't. I love the movie, now I want to see what the books like.
If anyone needs a copy of the book, it's available as a free PDF online: https://archive.org/details/to-kill-a...
I remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird in the 9th grade and I look forward to reading this book again as an adult. I also saw the movie. I look forward to this group read.
This is my FIRST time ever reading (listening to) this book, believe it or not! More than half way done, and loving it
This is your space to chat about this month's book selection with other readers. There is no set schedule to follow, and no discussion leader is assigned. Everyone should feel free to post comments, share pertinent articles or interviews, ask questions, share likes or dislikes, etc. Most importantly, enjoy reading together!
This book was nominated by Carmen for our monthly theme Kindness.
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. "To Kill A Mockingbird" became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, "To Kill A Mockingbird" takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.