It's a pity Harper Lee has published only one book, but then when ya win the Pulitzer on your first creation, I imagine it'd be hard to write another. And what a book!

I know my friends will find it difficult to believe that the long list of required classics on my PhD reading list included Magic Mountain but not To Kill a Mockingbird. That's why I took it upon myself to supplement my insufficient education. So now I've finally done it: Read it. Devoured it. Savored it.

I tried to get To Kill a Mockingbird on Kindle, but apparently Lee is still alive and her book is not in the public domain. Pity. So I made my way to the public library and borrowed a copy. And then I renewed it. And I plan to return it today and pay a four-dollar fine. In other words it took me a long time to get through it. And that fact has nothing to do with any failure on the part of the author to engage my interest. It's just that I kept having to work on that blasted dissertation proposal, my education getting in the way of my education.When I did some research on Lee's bio today, I learned that the month after she acquired an agent, she received a gift of a year's wages from friends with this note: "You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas." What friends! What a gift they gave to us all! Clearly they recognized Lee's talent, and they provide yet another example of how important patrons have been to the arts.The rest, as they say, is history. Lee quit her job and wrote the story, which enjoyed immediate success, including the Pulitzer. And maybe you knew what I didn't till last week--that the friend in the story (Dill) is based on Lee's true-life chum, Truman Capote. I chuckled when I read the scene where the kids went to church with their cook. Referring to the sermon, Scout's character says, "Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy all clergymen." (Remember my post last month about Cleopatra and Tamar and Bathsheba?)There's so much more I could say, but I'm guessing most of my readers probably all read the book long ago, analyzed it, and wrote essays about it. What could I possibly say that you don't already know? Great plot--do justice, love mercy. Great characters--Atticus, Scout, Jem, Dill, and Heck (even cool names). Great suspense--who is Boo Radley and why won't he appear? I have only one request for Ms. Lee: "Encore!"