Harper Lee has only ever written one book and that was published fifty-four years ago so it’s doubtful that she’ll ever have another out. Her reasoning for not producing a second novel is that it could never live up to the first. This, indeed, could be true because To Kill a Mockingbird is a really fantastic book.

The whole story is told from point of view of Scout Finch, a little girl growing up in a small town in Alabama called Maycomb. She and her friends Jem and Dill go off and have all kinds of fun in this lovely rural setting. Amidst their childish escapades, they also become curious about a mysterious man named Boo Radley, inadvertently causing him some trouble as they do.

Besides the kids, the other important character in this novel is Atticus Finch (Scout’s father) who is a lawyer.  When Scout’s not out having fun, she’s at home talking with her father and we slowly learn about his current case. More and more facts about this are fed to us as the novel goes along and it’s all very intriguing.

Outside of their storylines, the characters are still very likeable. Scout is a loveable little girl with beautifully idealistic view of the world and an adventurous personality and Atticus is a very serious man, always weighing up the moral consequences of actions. Part of what makes this novel so good is the fact that its characters are so endearing.

This is a very well regarded novel and one which certainly has earned it’s reputation. Without wanting to spoil any plot details, the storyline deals with racial issues of the time and it’s especially nice to know that the author was trying to make a difference. But whether you read it for its progressive social attitude, the way it captures lazy summer’s days or simply for portraits of incredible characters, there’s no denying that this is an exceptional novel.

Rating: 9.3/10

Buy it here.

(I wrote an article for Avoid Drowning, read it here.)

This is one of Shakespeare’s comedic plays and I really did find it to be quite funny at times. It’s a bit of a weird story, but it’s not very long so if you have any kind of interest in Shakespeare I think this is one you should try.

The story is about a man named Prospero who has been exiled to a small island for political reasons and he lives there along with his daughter Miranda and servant spirit Ariel. An extremely unattractive man named Caliban also lives on the island and he, along with a man named Trinculo and another named Stephano plan to assassinate Prospero.

Probably my favourite thing in The Tempest was Caliban. He is the son of a witch named Sycorax and this somehow means that he is incredibly ugly. Nobody seems able to resist making jokes about Caliban and treating him as if he is sub-human and he pretty much just takes it. It’s so mean, but it’s also so funny. The scenes of he, Stephan and Trinculo were probably my favourite as they all just seemed to be a group of incompetent rogues and were highly entertaining. Having said that, Caliban and Prospero had some kind of falling out due to a ‘betrayal’ on Caliban’s part, and while I never really understood what the betrayal was, Wikipedia says that he tried to rape Miranda, which turns him, in my eyes, from a comically villainous person into something much darker.

The scenes with Prospero were slightly less exciting. He’s often talking with his daughter Miranda and somebody named Ferdinand, and we watch as a romance grows between the pair. The romance all seemed so forced and uninteresting though and, had the fairly interesting Prospero not been present I’d not have had much interest in those parts of the story at all.

The is a short read, and a nice bit of light entertainment, but it’s nothing incredibly thought provoking or moving. Rating: 7.3/10

Buy it here.