Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

"For thus my Lord said to me: Go, station a watchman, let him tell what he sees."  --Isiah, 21:6, New American Bible *Spoilers* I told myself to ease into. I told yourself that it's not a sequel, it's a rough version. I told myself it's full of the characters of my childhood (and second childhood), the characters I know as well as myself, and love so much I just have to travel alongside them again. On a new journey. And yet I still prepared for the worst. And I wasn't disappointed. There is no way this is all Harper Lee's doing--though her publisher would have us believe it's an early and very different draft of what later became To Kill a Mockingbird --this book reads so inconsistently, and only parts of it ring with Lee's voice--in the part featuring the flashback of the children and the Revival I couldn't help but smile and be momentarily lulled. There she is, now she'll take over the story, and it will come right... ...

Harper Lee and Truman Capote I just read this article . I am so excited for Harper Lee, Joyce Carol Oates, Wendell Berry and Meryl Streep--among others--who are set to receive the National Medal of Art! "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." ~ Harper Lee,  To Kill a Mockingbird        “If you are a writer you locate yourself behind a wall of silence and no matter what you are doing, driving a car or walking or doing housework you can still be writing, because you have that space.” ~ Joyce Carol Oates  Harper Lee and hottie Gregory Peck (Peck played Atticus Finch, movie verion of To Kill a Mockingbird)   "When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be -- I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the gr...

I know I am a little ahead of the game--the 50th anniversary isn't until July--but I saw this article  yesterday and had to share it. For many of us To Kill a Mockingbird was required reading in school--for me it never was, so I took it upon myself to read it. I came to To Kill a Mockingbird when I was in seventh grade; my family had just uprooted from a private school back to public school (nearly an hour away); I was virtually friendless, lonely and unhappy; I didn't know who or what to believe in anymore and I was angry at the world. I fell into Harper Lee's book; was amused with Scout, who reminded me of myself; envied Atticus Finch, who's patience was something to marvel at. It has been nearly 20 years since last I read To Kill a Mockbird --though only months since last I watched the movie (which I love)--so it is time to read it again. Here's to you Harper Lee. Happy 50th. "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that...