Looking back at To Kill a Mockingbird, and forward to Go Set a Watchman

It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that Harper Lee has a new book out next month. The news has gripped the books world for the past few months, and the excitement is only going to grow as we get closer to the release of Go Set a Watchman on 14 July.

At times this story has seemed to be as much about money as about words. There have been auctions of letters, triumphant announcements about sales of To Kill a Mockingbird, even more fist-pumping about pre-orders of the new novel. There have also been the sad and ugly rumours about Harper Lee being duped into publication – and consequent refutations.

Disquieting whispers aside, I’m not complaining. Anything that gets people discussing fiction and into bookshops is all right with me. Even so, it’s going to be a relief to turn to the literature itself, and to see what the fuss is about.

First of all, To Kill a Mockingbird. I’ll post a piece next week discussing its continuing appeal and importance. This will be something of a first for The Reading group as we’ve looked at the novel before. Last time, guess what? We discovered that Harper Lee’s classic is, as one reader put it, “an insanely a good book”. But the discussion didn’t end there. It was fascinating to see just how well To Kill a Mockingbird repaid prolonged investigation. This is not, as Flannery O’Connor famously called it, a simple “children’s book”. It is morally complex, ambiguous and difficult.

There is still plenty more to say, and it’s more than worth a recap of our previous encounter, given how interesting that last discussion was – and what the book can still tell us about the ever more pressing issues of Southern race politics. Not to mention the fact that so many new readers have come to the book in the past few months.

But we won’t dedicate the whole month to To Kill a Mockingbird. In another first for the Reading group, we’re going to switch over to a book that hasn’t actually yet been released. I’m going to be standing in the bookshop queue just before midnight on 13 July, ready to snap up a copy of Go Set a Watchman and liveblog reactions to it.

Apparently there’s a speed reader attacking it up in Northumberland, so I won’t be the first to finish. But I’ll be posting some very early reactions for British night owls, as well as for people who are still awake and eager to hear about the novel in the US – and everyone enjoying the morning on the Australian side of the globe. I’ll bring you thoughts (or such thoughts as I will be capable of forming so long past bedtime) as soon as I have them – and, better still, other people’s opinions, as they come in.

It’s going to be a very interesting few weeks, and it all begins right here. Please do post any thoughts about subjects we should be tackling, your own reactions to Harper Lee’s first novel, and news of the upcoming release. I can’t wait to see how things turn out …