A book club is an interesting beast. You join on the basis that you will expand your reading horizons and engage with people about literary themes and deeper meanings. You then find yourself resenting your fellow book clubbers for picking something you’ve read and have no desire to read again.
Enter To Kill A Mocking Bird by Harper Lee. I read it at school and loved it. I read it again in my twenties and still loved it. I love the film. I did not want to read it again.
I read it again. Oh my God, it deserves it’s classic status. The tale of a young girl’s growing understanding of the adult world around her in the deep South of America following the depression with racism, poverty and class driving the behaviour of the adults around her. The decency of her family and friends and the lessons she learns from her father, Atticus Finch (surely the best father in literature), are beacons of hope and acceptance in a harsh world.
The book tears your heart open but then fills it with hope and love. It’s not afraid to look at and name the ugliness in the word but then gives you the strength to fight it.