Tag Archive for: harper lee

Coffee & Book Pairings Meme

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I’ve been seeing this fun meme floating around for a while now, most recently at So Many Books, so I thought I’d give it a go as well since coffee and books are basically two of my most favorite things in the whole world.

Image created at canva.com

Image created at canva.com

Black: A series that’s tough to get into but has hardcore fans.

I might be the only person on the planet who thinks this, but I’m going to go with George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series. I’ve read two of the books so far but have had the third sitting in my TBR pile for over a year now. It’s a love/hate thing with me. The story is amazing, but it just wears me out that every time I become attached to a character, they seem to almost immediately meet with a gruesome end. It’s emotionally draining

game of thrones


Peppermint Mocha: A book that gets more popular during the winter or a festive time of the year.

My peppermint mocha is book called The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey. There’s something magical about this book and I think about it every time it snows.

snow child


Hot Chocolate: Favorite Children’s Book

Too many favorites to count – Charlotte’s Web and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, to name a couple, but the one guaranteed to give me warm fuzzies just thinking about it is Winnie the Pooh and the House at Pooh Corner. A. A. Milne’s characters, especially Eeyore, have remained sentimental favorites all my life.

Winnie the Pooh


Double shot of Espresso: A book that kept you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.

I’m going to go with Bram Stoker Award winner Phoenix Island by John Dixon. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first picked up this book since it isn’t typically the type of book I read, but I was interested in it because a television show I liked at the time was based off of it. Boy, what a ride it turned out to be! An action-packed adrenaline rush from start to finish!

phoenix island


Starbucks: A book you see everywhere.

I don’t come across too many people who read in my daily life so I can only go by what my bookish friends online are reading and everyone seems to be talking about A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas. I haven’t started this series yet but look forward to doing so soon.

court of mist and fury


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Book Review: Go Set a Watchman

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Book Review: Go Set a WatchmanGo Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
three-half-stars
Published by HarperCollins on July 14th 2015
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 278
Amazon
Goodreads

Synopsis from Goodreads: From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch--"Scout"--returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in a painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past--a journey that can be guided only by one's conscience.
Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor and effortless precision--a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context and new meaning to an American classic.

 

 

My review:

Count me as one of the many readers who considers Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird one of the most powerful works of fiction ever written.  Assigned to me as required reading when I was in eighth grade, To Kill a Mockingbird was the first ‘grown-up’ book I had ever read and a far cry from the books I was used to having my nose buried in – namely, those fun and fluffy tales of the Wakefield twins from Sweet Valley High.  Viewing racism through the eyes of an innocent child, the novel’s eight year old narrator, Scout Finch, coupled with Harper Lee’s beautiful prose, spoke to me in ways that no book that I’ve read before or since has.   I was thrilled therefore to hear that after so many years, we were finally getting another novel from Ms. Lee with Go Set a Watchman.

I think the key to fully appreciating Go Set a Watchman is to read it with the knowledge that it is not meant to be a sequel to “To Kill a Mockingbird.”  As HarperCollins explains on its website, this is the first book that she submitted to her publisher for consideration and it was believed to be lost until it was recently discovered.

Originally written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman was the novel Harper Lee first submitted to her publishers before To Kill a Mockingbird.  Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014.  HarperCollins.com

Business Insider is a bit more explicit in discussing the relationship between the two novels:

Her publisher rejected it and suggested Lee explore the childhoods of the characters in the original novel, which led to the now-famous “To Kill a Mockingbird.”  BusinessInsider.com

In light of this information, I chose to view Go Set a Watchman as an early draft of what later became the much beloved To Kill a Mockingbird, basically an alternate universe if you please, and in viewing the novel as such, I quite enjoyed it.

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three-half-stars