Tag: harper lee

March 18, 2019

You Need to Hear The “To Kill a Mockingbird” Spotify Playlist

It’s hard to believe that nearly sixty years ago in 1960, Harper Lee’s literary classic To Kill A Mockingbird hit the shelves.

From Atticus Finch’s wise words, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view,” to the roller coaster of emotions that is the Tom Robinson Trial to Scout Finch’s loss of innocence to her transition into adulthood, the story has stayed in our hearts ever since.

The story has been written through words, visualized by the film adaptation, but we’ve hardly had a definitive sound to the story.

Image Via Amazon

If you would please, turn on our playlist, close your eyes, and remember the story’s humble beginnings and perhaps, you will hear birds flying, the children laughing, the excitement at the start of the Tom Robinson trial that justice will be served, the helplessness as it reaches its forgone conclusion, and maybe a tear will fall when you hear the news of his sudden and senseless death.

Maybe your heart will pound as nighttime comes and someone (Bob Ewell perhaps?) drunkenly stalks the forests and, if we did our job right, you too will be as breathless as Scout was when you first meet Boo Radley and think, for a fraction of a second, that maybe it was worth it.

The Chainsmokers – Young

Queen – Good Company

Phoenix – Lisztomania

Bob Dylan – The Times They are a Changing

Billy Joel – Innocent Man

Michael McCuiston – Justice League Theme Song

The Clash – I Fought The Law

Billy Joel – Only the good die young

Beatles – Yesterday

Tom Petty – I won’t back down

The Boo Radleys – Wake up Boo!

Louis Armstrong – What a wonderful world

Featured Image Via Pinterest

March 5, 2019

3 Books We Can’t Wait for This Year

It’s impossible to read all the books ever written, but lucky we don’t need to. We just have to read these books coming our way!

And the books we already own but haven’t read…but book problems, am I right?

Image Via Pencil Pocket

**3: Horse Museum by Dr. Seuss**

Image Via Publishersweekly

A new Dr. Seuss book is going to hit shelves on September 3, 2019, marking the second time a Dr. Seuss book has been published posthumously since 2015’s What Pet Should I Get?

The manuscript and sketches for book appear to have been discovered in the late author’s La Jolla home around the same time What Pet Should I Get? was discovered, but now illustrator Andrew Joyner is set to complete the author’s unfinished sketches.

A statement by Random House reveals that the story will take younger riders on a journey with a friendly horse touring an art museum with illustrations “combined throughout with full-color photographic reproductions of famous horse artwork by Pablo Picasso, George Stubbs, Rosa Bonheur, Alexander Calder, Jacob Lawrence, Deborah Butterfield, Franz Marc, Jackson Pollock…” and will features “[c]ameo appearances by classic Dr. Seuss characters (among them the Cat in the Hat, the Grinch, and Horton the Elephant)…”

With a first printing of 250,000 copies, this fall many readers, both young and old, will return to a Dr. Seuss’s world as it grows just a little bit larger.

2. Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep

Image Via Penguin Random House

In the vein of In Cold Blood, Casey Cep’s Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee is about what Goodreads describes as “[t]he stunning story of an Alabama serial killer and the true-crime book that Harper Lee worked on obsessively in the years after To Kill a Mockingbird“.

It is known that Harper Lee never wrote another book after To Kill A Mocking Bird. Go Set a Watchmen was confirmed to be the first draft of her literary classic, so this book has the potential to both dispel myths and paint a clear view on Harper Lee’s life post-publishing this May 7th, 2019.

Ironically, the novel is going to shed light on Harper Lee’s trying to write her next great American novel – a Gothic crime drama – but never succeeding.

Cari Mora by Thomas Harris

Image Via Goodreads

With his last book published in December of 2006, Thomas Harris has been quiet on us. Now he returns on May 16th with Cari Mora. His second novel not featuring his infamous Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter (his first novel, Black Sunday, didn’t feature the character when it debuted in 1975), Cari Mora is described by Tampa Bay as being about “Cari Mora, caretaker of the house, has escaped from the violence in her native country. She stays in Miami on a wobbly Temporary Protected Status, subject to the iron whim of ICE. She works at many jobs to survive. Beautiful, marked by war, Cari catches the eye of Hans-Peter as he closes in on the treasure. But Cari Mora has surprising skills, and her will to survive has been tested before.”

With its titular female character and themes of immigration, we can’t wait to read the sixth novel from the man whose kept us up late at night since the mid-seventies.

Featured Image Via Pencil Pocket

March 4, 2019

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Actress Receives Standing Ovation

The word ‘timeless’ is thrown around a lot when speaking about 1962’s To Kill a Mocking Bird, but the film truly hasn’t seemed to age. Logically, of course, in a way it doesn’t. When the film is on, Atticus Finch always looks like a forty-six-year-old Gregory Peck, Scout Finch always looks like a ten-year- old Mary Badham, and those bright summer days always seem to fly by.

Image Via The Telegraph

“I have a vivid memory of watching it in my living room with my parents,” People reported Celia Keenan-Bolger, the award-winning actress, telling a large audience. Near tears, Keenan-Bolger’s nostalgic tale drives home at what all stories strive for: emotional core.

However, by their nature emotions aren’t rational. They drive right past logic and stay with us in the back of our minds. Celia Keenan-Bolger told the awaiting audience how there was a “profound impact that Mary Badham’s performance as Scout Finch had on my life”. That’s not hyperbole, that’s emotional impact.

Image Via WWNO

There is a reason why we remember this story. After reaching fame as a child actress, Mary Badham told the Telegraph how, “I always called him Atticus and [Gregory Peck] still called me Scout right up to the end”. Since Mr. Peck’s death, Mary Badham has kept busy. According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, she visited the Episcopal School in Knoxville, Tennessee and spread the message of Harper Lee’s novel and its film adaptation, telling them how “[e]ducation is the key to freedom.”

When Aaron Sorkin underwent the challenge and now his adaptation of To Kill A Mocking Bird has hit Broadway. In what seems to be out of a fairy-tale, Celia Keenan-Bolger, teary eyed, faced the audience and told them how Mary Badham’s performance as Scout became “an enduring icon to me and to young girls for many generations, so you can imagine what it felt like to find out that she is here today.”

Image Via Hollywood Reporter

Afterwards Mary Badham was welcomed to the show with a sea of applause and, for one moment, people came closer together. Perhaps this is why we see stage adaptations of old favorites. The new mediums gives the story a new light, the actors a new inflection, and, despite the differences, we still find the same thing we found before.

Featured Image Via NY T imes

January 4, 2019

‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Is Now the Highest-Grossing Play on Broadway

Aaron Sorkin’s To Kill A Mockingbird has shattered records and already become one of the greatest successes in Broadway history. The adaptation of the classic novel only finished its second week of performances and grossed over $1.7 million according to Variety.

To Kill A Mockingbird hasn’t had an empty seat since opening with capacity being at 100% or more for every performance. The play also has an open-ended run which is a testament to its popularity and reception.

^{Image Via Amazon}

The story is kept relatively the same. There are a couple of changes (some of which caused a little controversy). An early draft of the script had Atticus Finch drinking whiskey and cursing to the extent that Harper Lee’s estate sued the show’s producers. Sorkin decided to enlarge the role of beloved Finch family caretaker Calpurnia. Overall, the play still captures the spirit of the iconic coming-of-age story that also examines racial injustice against the backdrop of 1934 Alabama.

Adapting To Kill A Mockingbird was a demanding task for Sorkin, who not only had to deal with the author’s estate, but also grapple with the legacy of the classic 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck.

The effort proves to be well worth it as the show continues to thrive commercially and critically. Variety praised Jeff Daniel’s depiction of Atticus as a “strong and searching performance” and called the show an “effective adaptation” while The New York Times labeled it as “beautiful” and “elegiac”.

Featured Image Via Variety

October 25, 2018

Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Wins The Great American Read

Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird has rightfully claimed the top spot in the PBS Great American Read. The 1960 novel features one of the greatest characters in literary history, Jim Crow-era lawyer Atticus Finch and is told from the point of view of Atticus’s young daughter Scout. A true testament to justice, morality, and basic human dignity, the book was adapted into an Oscar winning 1962 film and has sold over forty million copies worldwide.

^{Image Via novemberschild.com}

All in all, four million votes were cast for the hundred books on the list. Mockingbird held an early lead in the voting and never lost its top spot. It’s the sort of book that resonates just as much today as it did nearly sixty years ago. A well deserved win that was never in doubt.

Other top winners are fairly unsurprising with the Harry Potter series as a whole nabbing third place, Lord of the Rings coming in at number seven, and Chronicles of Narnia in ninth. The Outlander series about a time travelling nurse came in second place.

Feature Image Via Variety