It would be impossible, I think, to predict what books from today will still be remembered 50 years ago.
Not many, I’m thinking. Maybe a big novel by Tom Wolfe or John Updike, or some masterpiece of non-fiction history by David McCullough or someone like him.
The idea that you could write something like a first novel, and have millions of readers adore it a half-century later, is pretty inconceivable to me.
And yet, a quiet, private woman named Harper Lee wrote “To Kill A Mockingbird,” released 50 years ago this summer.
I don’t have to tell you how brilliant it was; I sure as heck hope every man, woman and child in America has read it.
Some books you read in high school don’t hold up; just to see if I loved it as much, I re-read “To Kill A Mockingbird” a few years ago. I still worshipped the relationship between Scout and Atticus; I was still blown away by Lee’s dialogue, pacing, and scene-setting.
My favorite passage, by far:
“Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.”
Congratulations, Harper Lee, for 50 years of touching people’s souls.
**And now for the item brides everywhere have been waiting for: Diapers for under your wedding dress.
Apparently this is a big problem for brides, not being able to wriggle out of your dress enough, or maneuver it just so, to go to the poddy once your dress is on. I thought it was the bridesmaids’ job to hold up her friend’s dress when needed, but I guess that’s been outsourced.
Yes, diapers for women on their big day.
I literally have no comment on this. Actually, I’m too afraid to comment because I’m sure whatever I say, my women readers would consider it offensive.
Wide World of Stuff 