To Kill a Mockingbird

Book: To Kill a Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
Page count: 323
Format: Print, borrowed
Start date: July 13, 2011
End date: July 20, 2011



Thoughts/impressions:

So, the secondary theme of this blog/project seems to be "Books Ashley can't believe she hasn't read already because they're amazing." I think I had a complete and utter misconception of what this book was and it scared me away for years. I really regret not just reading it because then maybe I'd be rereading this amazing book rather than reading it for the first time.

As I've previously stated, I love a book with good characters, and the character of Scout drew me in right away. However, this is really the skill of Harper Lee, because Scout is the type of character I usually wouldn't identify with at all, and actually don't really identify with, but she was so fleshed out and interesting and wonderful that I couldn't stop reading about her and growing with her and I am so amazed with how this character developed in my mind.

Another instance of Harper Lee being amazing is the character of Atticus Fitch. I'm sure if you statistically analyzed the book, Atticus as a person and not an idea in the mind of his children is very rarely found in the pages. However, I love him. I empathize with him. I want to know more and more and more about him and yet I'm not left wanting in regards to his development with what we have.

Finally, I loved how many issues were addressed in this novel without being beaten over the head with them. Obviously, race is a huge part, as well as class, law, growing up, and even love, between family, friends, and maybe more. These ideas are just seamlessly blended into the narrative so that rather than reading like a manifesto or lecture or something similarly dry that needs to be studied, it reads like life and truth.

Quotes:

"Thus we came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies." (9)

"Now that I was compelled to think about it, reading was something that just came to me, as learning to fasten the seat of my union suit without looking around, or achieving two bows from a snarl of shoelaces. I could not remember when the lines about Atticus's moving finger separated into words, but I had stared at them all the evenings in my memory, listening to the news of the day, Bills to Be Enacted into Laws, the diaries of Lorenzo Dow - anything Atticus happened to be reading when I crawled into his lap every night. Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing." (20)

"Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win." (87)

"I wanted you to see something about her - I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what." (128)

"Whether Maycomb knows it or not, we're paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to do right. It's that simple." (269)

"Sometimes I think I'm a total failure as a parent, but I'm all they've got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I've tried to live so I can look squarely back at him...if I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn't meet his eye, and the day I can't do that I'll know I've lost him. I don't want to lose him and Scout, because they're all I've got." (314)

Progress:
9/100

Ender's Game

Book: Ender's Game
Author: Orson Scott Card
Page count: 323
Format: E-book, Kindle
Start date: June 12, 2011
Finish date: June 13, 2011



Thoughts/impressions:

This may be a bit difficult, because I'm dumb and left this blog post for way too long after reading the book. However, that being said, I loved this book. I remember first hearing about it when I was in 8th grade. We had certain books to chose between and present upon, and Ender's Game was one of those. I obviously didn't read it, but I was very intrigued by my classmate's presentations and I honestly don't know why I didn't read it before now. Still, when I saw it was on the list I was very excited to have the chance to finally read it.

Needless to say, I was not disappointed. This story had so many elements that appealed to me. This edition had a foreword from Orson Scott Card, which was really interesting to read and really shaped the book as one that is about the characters and the effect they have on the readers. Throughout the story, I was engrossed with the character of Ender and finding bits of myself in him, and therefore being driven to consider what I would have done in similar positions. I think that's part of why I read this book so quickly...the character of Ender seemed to real to me and I didn't want to leave him hanging in the balance of the book. I wanted the resolution for him.

There was so much to love about this story: the plot, the characters, the setting, the style of writing. Ah. This is making me want to read the book all over again, and in my mind, that's the mark of a good story.

Quotes:

"It isn't what he did, Mrs. Wiggin. It's why." (19)

"Ender didn't like fighting. He didn't like Peter's kind, the strong against, the weak, and he didn't like his own kind either, the smart against the stupid." (21)

"Human beings are free except when humanity needs them. Maybe humanity needs you. To do something. Maybe humanity needs me - to find out what you're good for. We might both do despicable things, Ender, but if humankind survives, then we were good tools." (35)

"Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. IT made him wise." (111)

"Well, I'm your man. I'm the bloody bastard you wanted when you had me spawned. I'm your tool, and what difference does it make if I hate the part of me that you most need? What difference does it make that when the little serpents killed me in the game, I agreed with them, and was glad." (118)

"With Alai, to a degree impossible even with Shen, Ender had come to feel a unity so strong that the word we came to his lips much more easily than I." (171)

"Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. survival first, then happiness as we can manage it." (277)

"We had to have a commander with so much empathy that he would think like the buggers, understand them and anticipate them. So much compassion that he could win the love of his underlings and work with them like a perfect machine, as perfect as the buggers. But somebody with that much compassion could never be the killer we needed. Could never go into battle willing to win at all costs. If you knew, you couldn't do it." (297)

"Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you. (313)

Summary in one sentence:
A boy is raised and manipulated into becoming the weapon the human race needs, through his coming of age.

Progress:
8/100