“To Kill a Mockingbird” might just be more popular than the Bible, Mary McDonagh Murphy suggests in the introductory chapter to her new book “Scout, Atticus & Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird.” Murphy writes:
Fifty years after its publication, it sells nearly a million copies every year—hundreds of thousands more than “The Catcher in the Rye,” “The Great Gatsby” or “Of Mice and Men,” American classics that are staples of high school classrooms. No other twentieth-century American novel is more widely read. Even British librarians, who were polled in 2006 and asked, “Which book should every adult read before they die?” voted “To Kill a Mockingbird” number one. The Bible was number two.
If you love the book, you’ll want to read this whole essay. If you don’t love the book, WTF.
“Reading ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is something millions of us have in common,” Murphy writes, “and yet there is nothing common about the experience.”
Excellent…. just excellent.