I mentioned a while ago in a post about shopping for books and being a cheapskate that I was positive I had a copy of this book somewhere in my house. Turns out I was both right and wrong. I did indeed have a copy of the book — it was just in a big container of books stowed away in the garage. So once I pulled it out from amongst my old Sweet Valley Twins and BSC books, I finally read it again. Then I forgot to review it. Then I started writing the review and saved it as a draft. Then I forgot about the draft. And now I’m up at 4:00 AM, unable to sleep, and I remembered I have this and another book to review.

Anyway… this was a reread for a course I’m marking, and, as I’ve discovered with a lot of rereads lately, I liked it much better than I did when I first read it in grade 9. I guess it just made more sense to me now that I’m older. I can see why this book is a classic — it certainly raised a lot of controversial issues in the day it was published.

The story revolves around the Finch family: a little girl named Scout, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus. The first half of the book centers around Scout’s, Jem’s, and their friend, Dill’s, fascination with Boo Radley — a man living down the street who hasn’t left his house in years. Of course, this causes all sorts of myth to be created about the mysterious locked-in man by the children of the town.

The second half of the story centers around the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white girl; and in the Southern USA of the 1930s, a black man was guilty until proven innocent. Atticus Finch is appointed as Tom’s attorney, and the family must now deal with the prejudice and anger from a town and the county full of white people raised through through generations of racism and class differences. Through the name calling and threats, Atticus attempts to teach his children to be compassionate to all people: whether they are black or white, poor or rich, smart or slow. He believes that all people should see the world through the eyes of the less fortunate, and not be too quick to judge.

It’s definitely a great story about compassion and honesty and understanding. Atticus epitomizes honesty and goodness, and through the eyes of his children, we see how blinding and wrong racism can be. At times, I thought the book felt a little too long in places (the first half in particular), but the story as a whole contains messages that are worthy of all readers’ time.

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I first read this play in high school, and I hardly remembered a thing when I thought about it. The second time around was much more interesting :)

The play has four characters: Tom, who is the narrator, his mother Amanda, his sister Laura, and a “gentleman caller” named Jim who works with Tom at a shoe warehouse. Amanda is an overbearing mother and a queen of the guilt trips. She reminds me a little of Mrs Bennet from Pride and Prejudice in that she is overly concerned with finding her daughter a husband to take care of her. Laura, however, is nothing like Elizabeth Bennet. She has none of the confidence and social graces, and instead becomes sick with fright when anyone looks at her for too long. Laura is content to sit at home with her mother and tend to her glass menagerie of animal figurines, though she knows her mother worries she will turn into an old maid.

One day, Tom decides to invite a co-worker home to meet his sister. It’s not because he wants to, but because his mother wants him to and he can’t stand arguing with her about it anymore. The gentleman caller turns out to be a boy both Tom and Laura went to high school with. He’s charming, and able to draw Laura out of her shell for a while — a sign that it is possible for her to meet someone if she would only try. Of course, Jim and Laura falling in love and getting married would be a much too easy way to end the play, and instead Tom continues the pattern of abandonment and leaves his mother and Laura to fend for themselves and become old maids together. Not exactly your happy ending!

No, if ever there was a play about the ultimate dysfunctional family, this would be it. Tom is stuck taking care of his mother and sister because his father abandoned them, Amanda is stuck in the glory days of her youth, and Laura is stuck at home, hiding from the world because of her low confidence in herself. All of them want better, but none of them are able to go for it.

It might sound like a melancholic, depressing read, and it is, but it’s still entertaining. A good, quick read. I enjoyed it much more this second time around.

I decided to reread this classic Shakespearean play while listening to an unabridged audiobook of it at the same time. When I took a Shakespeare course in University, I found that watching the plays while I read along helped me to understand them better. I particularly liked the taped stage productions of the Royal Shakespeare Society, which I borrowed from my library. I’d watch and read along and seeing the actors’ expressions helped me figure out the language much better than those little footnotes at the bottom of the page do when reading. This time, however, I got a dramatized audiobook of the play from iTunes (with multiple actors and lots of sound effects, which really helps) and listened along as I read. I realized that there is really no way to just listen to a play and not read along — you’d get so lost in the characters and trying to figure out who was speaking and entering and exiting the scenes without all the stage directions to guide you. So I definitely wouldn’t recommend downloading Shakespeare onto your iPod unless you intend to read along with it as well — much better to watch the play performed exactly to the script if you don’t want to read it yourself.

Macbeth is a Scottish nobleman who has earned glowing recommendations from his fellow countrymen as a great soldier on the fields. On his way home from a battle, Macbeth and his fellow nobleman Banquo come upon three witches who make prophecies to the two men: Macbeth, already Thane (Lord) of Glamis will soon earn the title of Thane of Cawdor, and become King of Scotland shortly after. They also tell that that though Macbeth will become King, none of his own children will succeed him on the throne — that is destined for Banquo’s lineage.

Upon returning to the King’s castle, one of the witches’ prophecies immediately comes true: King Duncan, so impressed with all he has heard about Macbeth, names him Lord of Cawdor for his brave service to the country. Believing that the rest of the witches’ prophecies must also come true, Macbeth and his ruthless wife, Lady Macbeth, become impatient for the third prophecy to come true. They decide they will murder King Duncan when he comes to stay with them at their castle, and make it seem as if the King’s own sons had each schemed to murder their father so that they may take up his place on the throne. When Duncan is found murdered, the sons flee in fear for their own lives, not realizing they have only supported the story that they had brought about the murder of their own father by running away. With the murdered King’s sons fled, Macbeth is named King of Scotland.

With this new title crowned on him, Macbeth becomes jealous of the witches’ last prophecy — that no child of Macbeth’s shall rule Scotland, but one of Banquo’s will. Macbeth decides to hire killers to murder Banquo and his son so that the witches’ last prophecy can not come true. When the murderers kill Banquo, but fail to capture his son, Fleance, Macbeth returns to the witches to learn more about his fate. The witches tell him that a war will be brought to his doorstep, but no man borne of a woman can kill him, leaving Macbeth with a sense of security that he will live a long life, during which he can no doubt come up with some plan to prevent Fleance and any of his children from assuming the throne.

With each killing, Macbeth falls further and further into madness. He shows remorse in the beginning with Duncan’s murder, but with his cruel wife by his side, and power corrupting his mind, he commits more and more murders to keep himself on the throne. His ambition and overconfidence soon will lead him to his downfall as the rest of the noblemen begin to see what evils Macbeth has committed, and rise up against him to revenge their families and take back their country.