To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have picked this book up in bookshops more times than I can remember over the last 40 years or so. It was the publication of the much vaunted sequel, Go Set A Watchman, that persuaded me to buy a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird. I vaguely remember seeing the film (movie) many years ago, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, a lawyer in a small town in Alabama, but remembered little of the plot. So, I was coming to the book some 55 years after its publication.

I won't forget this book in a hurry. Its theme of racial bigotry in the 1930s is handled with a level of unexpected humour as told mainly through the eyes of Finch's young daughter. Humour mixed with tragedy and a faint note of hope for human nature. It is a touching novel full of the raw innocence of youth and the quiet humility of a good and gentle man. It has stood the test of time and I enjoyed it.

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