Read about the other entries on the list.To Kill a Mockingbird (1960)
Harper Lee’s classic of American literature is often thought of as a courtroom drama because of Gregory Peck’s performance as idealistic lawyer Atticus Finch. In fact, in the novel, the trial of Tom Robinson does not begin until over halfway and takes no more than a few pages. Lee’s portrayal of endemic racism in the deep south of the 1930s uses the courtroom setting to expose not an individual crime but the ills of society as a whole. Prejudice based on skin colour is what is really on trial, with the jurors and witnesses as guilty parties, and Tom, as the man in the dock, not perpetrator but victim.
To Kill a Mockingbird made Hanna McGrath's top fifteen list of epic epigraphs, the Telegraph's list of ten great meals in literature, Nicole Hill's list of fourteen characters their creators should have spared, Isla Blair's six best books list, Lauren Passell's list of ten pairs of books made better when read together, Charlie Fletcher's top ten list of adventure classics, Sheila Bair's 6 favorite books list, Kathryn Erskine's top ten list of first person narratives, Julia Donaldson's six best books list, TIME magazine's top 10 list of books you were forced to read in school, John Mullan's list of ten of the best lawyers in literature, John Cusack's list of books that made a difference to him, Lisa Scottoline's top ten list of books about justice, and Luke Leitch's list of ten literary one-hit wonders. It is one of Sanjeev Bhaskar's six best books and one of Alexandra Styron's five best stories of fathers and daughters.
--Marshal Zeringue