#rereading to kill a Mockingbird

[timeguardiansarchive]

Scout Finch canon information

Brother Jem is fours year older, mother died when she was two of a sudden heart attacks, has an uncle Jack ten years younger than Atticus

Mrs Henry Lafayette Dubose- two doors north

Radley place three doors South

Mrs Rachel Haverford Next door- Charles Baker Harris/ Dill is her nephew

Scout misbehaved often for Calpurnia and Atticus sided with Calpurnia which made Scout quite sore/ grumpy.

Scouts been reading a long time before her schooling even started

[libraryspectre]

Not sure what I was expecting in the To Kill A Mockingbird tag but it was not x reader fanfic about Atticus Finch. At the same time, I'm not sure there's ever been a character who deserved it more

[lightgaswaterelectricityrent]

I might have everyone bested in the "book I shouldn't have read" category because when I was in 7th grade we had this huge used book sale at our school and I found the Handmaid's Tale and bought it thinking....idk what exactly (it seemed...historical?) but my english teacher saw me after and asked what I had picked out and to her credit her head did not explode. but based on the look on her face that is permanently burned onto the back of my eyelids it was close. so yeah I just went home with that and read it unaccompanied

[micamicster]

allison bechdel’s mom really did so much for me when she said it coheres. articulated something I was always looking to express in my conversations and criticisms of art that I had not previously had the words for. Does it cohere? It coheres

[goodmiffy]

Jan is nearly over so here are the books I’ve read so far this year !!

1. To Kill a Mockingbird, this was a reread as it’s one of my favourites !!

2. Crime and Punishment, it was difficult at first but soooo worth it once i got into it. Somehow not much happens and yet it feels like everything is happening and it’s inescapable so yeah the atmosphere was crafted really well. Also I’d never read Dostoevsky before and was surprised by his relatively progressive attitudes towards women and i personally felt like a big theme was his own reckoning with misogyny although the internet doesn’t seem to think it’s a central theme I’d still argue that it is.

3. An aura of mystery, i read this while i was hospitalised with my kidney infection lol and I’m not going to lie it’s possibly the worst book I’ve ever read, it’s at least bottom 3. Idk why i keep trying with these random modern crime thrillers bc i never enjoy them…

4. Kindred, Octavia E Butler - chose this one because Butler became the first black female science fiction author and kindred is possibly her most famous work, and ohhhh my god it’s so good i had to keep stopping to make notes because i thought it was so brilliant i feel like i want to write an essay on it just for fun. Being a book that explores slavery in detail as you can expect it was very upsetting and distressing but Butler wrote kindred to contextualise why black people in the antebellum south appeared to ‘accept’ their status as slaves and didn’t try harder to be free or rebel against their masters. This was in response i think to a black classmate of hers who criticised previous generations for submitting and being ‘weak’. In kindred Butler creates this context expertly through multiple narratives and asserts her own privilege as a black woman in the 70s relative to what her ancestors had to survive through just so she could be where she is. it also emphasises how even slaves who appeared to be ‘submitting’ were also regularly engaging in acts of defiance for example by helping others escape despite the risk to both parties. It does all of this while also being a science fiction novel and a romance that addresses interracial relationships, and explores the intersections of race and sex/racism and misogyny… 10/10

[docholligay]

@thoughtfulfuri sorry this took me so long! A revised list of books you should look into reading this year. I could have added more ahaha, but this will keep you plenty busy.

Deeply informed by your list and the brief of:  “Books that have deeply influenced the thrust of the genre and media broadly” 

I also went for breadth over depth--you had some authors with a TON of books on your list, and if you’re looking for understanding of media influence I’m not sure that’s the best use of your time. THis isn’t a perfect list but I think it’ll provide a better net than your original. I do not know what you have an haven’t read. Spots where I think you might have read my recommendation I supplied a second. An incomplete list, because no list is ever complete, and always has huge gaps in judgment. WE can always make a new list next year! 

Agatha Christie -- And Then There Were None This was already on your list and it’s perfect. I prefer Murder On the Orient Express, but in fairness, those are the only two Christie novels I’ve ever read. And I’d keep it to one from each author. 

The Art of War — Sun Tzu  From your list, I have no issue with it

Kurt Vonnegut -- Slaughterhouse Five  This is his best and most enduring work. IF you’re looking for incredible influence, this is the one. 

Octavia Butler -- Kindred  I winnowed down your multiple Butler works to this big hitter. 

Isaac Asimov -- I, Robot From your list, make total sense

Daphne DuMaurier -- Rebecca You had My Cousin Rachel, which is great fun, but Rebecca is THE DuMaurier book. 

Leo Tolstoy -- War and Peace I replaced Crime and Pnishment with this not because I don’t like Crime and Punishment, but because if you’re going to commit to a russian novel, you may as well make it the most influential one ever written. This is routinely hailed as the best fucking novel ever written. It is in fact great. I will reread it with you this year! 

Frank Herbert -- Dune. This is from your original list and it’s fine I guess. I think reading Dune is a waste of time unless you’re super into sci-fi, but I won’t fight it. 

JRR Tolkien-- The Fellowship of the Ring From your original list and yeah absolutely. Cannot hope to ujnderstand fantasy as a genre without reading this. If you like it I recommend the whole series, but Tolkien can be hard for people. 

Harper Lee -- To Kill A Mockingbird From your list. Yes, this is an incredibly important American piece. 

Jane Austen -- Pride and Predjudice. There is no more influential Austen novel. You gotta. If you’ve read P&P read Sense and Sensibility, which has the added benefit of being at least four times better (according to people named Doc, who are me, who do not like P&P) 

Ray Bradbury -- Fahrenheit 451. I actually prefer Something Wicked from your list, but F451 is much more influential. If you’ve read Farenheit, read 1984 by George Orwell. IF you’ve read that, read Brave New World by Huxley. If you’re read that, scrap totally, your list is very sci-fi weighted anyhow. 

Oscar Wilde -- The Picture of Dorian Gray. Replaced A Woman of No Importance, which most people haven’t even heard of, with Picture, a deeply and widely referenced novel. If you’ve read picture, read “The Importance of Being Earnest” or better, watch a proshot of a play. 

Gregory McGuire--- Wicked. I dunno that I think this deserves a spot on your list, but I get that everyone’s talking about it right now. And I like the book! But it’s just not very genre influential, it’s more deeply influenced BY the genre. I left it, because I get wanting to engage with everyone talking about it, but those are my reservations.

WE ARE OFF YOUR LIST TOTALLY NOW. So I took a bunch of repeats off your list. I admire wanting to track influential books, and broaden your understanding of media generally, but I think you were sorta getting into the weeds. So I added a few others that have huge media impact. 

Charles Dickens -- David Copperfield    Boy did this suck for me to try and pick. I fucking love Charles Dickens. He was a dick in a lot of ways, revolutionary in others, and the man could write his ass off. He knew how to write a serial style that also keeps track of itself, and there is stuff that blows my mind as a modern reader even now. (If I hadn’t unintentionally made last years book clubs essentially Brit Lit 2: Brit harder i would be doing a Dickens novel for book club. I do have an idea of theming this year as “The American Answer” so like, we did Brideshead last year and the, well, an, American answer to that book is the Secret History. Here On Earth for Wuthering Heights. I don’t know. Actually, there’s an AMerican restyling of David Copperfield in my to-reads for this year) BUT ANYWAY, I ended up picking David Copperfield. It was Dickens’ own favorite, it’s one of his only first person novels, and it is the clearest example of Dickens’ tendency to impress himself upon a character. It has its flaws, of course, but I think centering yourself on David, a nostalgic, emotional writer trying to make his way in the world up from poverty, gives you a great understanding of both Dickens’ incredible influence and his own understanding of HIMSELF. Wow that was a lot of words. I have feelings about Charles Dickens. Sorry. 

Toni Morrison -- Beloved I didn’t like this book, when I read it. But it is good, it won the fucking Pulitzer Prize. I think Song of Solomon is better for me though. Anyway, you have to read Toni Morrison. The way she weaves in the Black American experience with undertones of magical realism impacts the way stories of what I’m going to call “difficult narratives” are allowed to be told today, influencing even people outside of the Black community. 

Salman Rushdie -- The Satanic Verses A masterwork of parallel storytelling, people keep trying to kill Rushdie over this book, a fantastic story about the immigrant experience in Great Britian. 

And some genre stuff for flavor: 

Spy Novels:

Ian Fleming -- Casino Royale  You know who james fucking Bond is. He was a book character first! 

John LeCarre -- The Spy who Came in From the Cold Okay, I am gonna level with you that this and fleming are two opposite poles, but I think they are two opposite poles that give you a really good look at what the spy novel can be and has been. I really enjoy John LeCarre despite not being huge into the genre

Horror: 

Shirley Jackson -- The Haunting of Hill House  This is the novel that launched Stephen King of all people, among others. Jackson is a fucking genius. 

Stephen King -- The Shining Horror is hard, because I read and love a lot of it. But The Shining had a huge influence on both horror and the American consciousness broadly. 

Fantasy:

TH White-- The Once and Future King. Were you at the book club for this? I cannot fucking remember to save my own life. Anyway, if you weren’t, this and LoTR changed fantasy forever. Same time period, even. How we understand fantwasy broadly today comes out of how Tolkien and White were thinking of it. If you read this, read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis. 

Grr Martin-- A Game of Thrones Oh, I’m gonna get letters. But genuinely this book changed the game in fantasy, and had a huge cultural impact on America and many other Western countries.

[separatist-apologist]

Hey MB<3 I just keep rereading your fics over and over and they hit everytime (like seriously they itch every scratch in my brain), but just wondering, do u have any elucien fics on your tbr rn, or recent ones that you recommend? I'm mostly looking for canon compliant bc that is crack to me but im not too picky, just looking for recs!

I ANSWERED THE WRONG ASK god kill me right now

You're so sweet. Sorry it took me so long to write this- I wanted to put together a good mix. I hope you like them- these are just one's I've read, there are more on @elucienweekofficials list of multi-chapter fics set in canon, too!

This is long so I put it beneath a cut. I tried to mix on-going fics with completed fics and not recommend the same ones I always do. If anyone finds this list helpful, be better than me and leave a review

I Believe The Word You're Looking For Is Friends by @kingofsummer93

Elain Archeron and Lucien Vanserra are haunted by ghosts of their past, unable to move forward, unsure where they belong.

Together they come to an agreement. He'll teach her everything he knows about Prythian. He'll take her anywhere she wants to go.

In return, maybe she can just stop slapping him so much.

All You Have Is Your Fire by @clockwork-ashes

'I can hear your heart beating through the stone.' For the briefest of moments, Lucien wondered if his mate would know exactly when his heart’s steady rhythm came to a sudden stop.

Elain goes to the Autumn Court demanding an audience with the High Lord to save the mate she can barely stand to be in the same room with. She ends up having to stay much longer than she bargained for.

What If I Told You I'm Back by climbingmountains

Come one, come all, it's happening again…Elain and Azriel have been married for ten years. Koschei is defeated, their family is at peace. And if she feels a hollow ache of something every once in a while, that’s just the price one pays for love and duty.

Until she comes home one day to the news that her husband has a mating bond of his own.

OR: I listened to nothing but The Tortured Poets Department for over a month and had a lot of angst to release.

Mockingbird by @avabrynne

After Lucien reluctantly agrees to meet with Eris, he’s shocked when his brother reveals his biggest secret: he has eight-year-old twin daughters. Unwilling to entrust them to anyone else and with Beron's gaze on him more intense than ever, Eris has Lucien swear to protect the girls and take them with him.

When it becomes clear they can’t stay in the human lands even when glamoured to look human, Lucien turns to the Night Court. While it’s easier to handle outbursts of young magic there, Lucien needs help. Enter Elain, who bonded quickly with the twins after their arrival. On top of everything else, Lucien and Elain start to navigate their bond while also finding out a few more secrets, like who Lucien’s actual father is. It's an Autumn and Day Court family drama Elucien and ErisxOC fic!

ACOWAR (Eluciens edition) by @crazy-ache

One moment. All it takes is one singular moment to change the trajectory of fate. Following the events of Hybern, everything changes when Lucien instinctively grabs his mate—Elain Archeron—and brings her back to the Spring Court with Feyre and Tamlin.

In the midst of war and ruin, Elain and Lucien will have to face the bond that connects them together if they hope to survive the unintended consequences. To do so, they’ll have to prevail through games of deceit, powerful forces of magic, and deadly enemies. And hope their hearts survive the journey.

A retelling of A Court of Wings and Ruin (ACOWAR) and a Canon Divergent AU.

A Court of Ash and Sunlight by aturner1205

“I know you’d rather not get help from me. I know you’ve rejected our mating bond and I’ve accepted that. But I still want to make sure you’re safe.��

Her heart twisted in its cage, filling her whole body with icy tears that would not spill.

Tell him. He deserves to know the truth. Tell him.

And because this time the voice inside was hers, because it was strong and clear and right, she did.

“I haven’t rejected the mating bond with you, Lucien,” she said quietly, her chest pounding so loud she could hardly hear the words. “But I think I damaged it, because—because I’ve never felt it.”

The Scenic Route by @bonecarversbestie

Elain grows discontent with her role in the Night Court as she grapples with grief for her human life and powers that she does not fully understand. One evening she accidentally winnows to Lucien's doorstep and he agrees to take her back to Velaris via the scenic route.

Can I Be Close To You by @temperedink

Elain and Lucien have been feeling out their tentative new relationship for a while, and Elain is getting antsy about the slow pace she's set for them. But maybe it's time to take things to the next level.

Set a few years post-ACOSF.

Oceans Apart (Never) by angryramen

Living in the Day-Court with her mate seemed like a damning at first. But slowly Elain started to enjoy Lucien’s company. They conversed together in the Day-Court gardens and slowly became friends. He even promised to charter a ship to take her to the continent, somewhere she’d always wanted to go. But when the time comes to say goodbye…

The Heirs of Fall and Flame by arosebetweenthorns

Eris Vanserra has always been a complicated male. Born as the first son to a tyrant of a High Lord, he was raised on cruelty, learning never to reveal weaknesses. But as Eris' allegiances to his father's court are questioned, his loyalties forming with those across borders, he realises enemies in his own court - especially his father - may be too difficult for him to keep at bay, especially when he inadvertently sets his father's sights onto his youngest brother. Then there's Rhysand's Inner Circle to contend with - one particular shadowsinger that Eris can't seem to avoid... but does he even want to? --- Lucien Vanserra always thought his suffering at the Autumn Court's hands was behind him. But when his father shows a vested interest in him years after banishing him, it's clear he will have to fight to keep the fragile peace he's built himself. All Lucien wants is to be with Elain and begin a life of his own, but when Elain's life is threatened by his father, Lucien learns just how much he has to learn before life can truly begin.

This is a direct continuation of the events of ACOSF. Joint POV of Eris and Lucien.

A Court of Breaking by @aldbooks

A year after the events of A Breaking, Elain feels a tug on the bond and realizes her estranged mate is in danger. Lucien, now returned to the Night Court, wonders if he might have been too hasty in his decision to leave, and if there might still be a chance for him with his mate

Summer Heat by @zenkindoflove

Lucien nodded his head, looking for any cue that he was dismissed. “Got it. Keep everyone in line and try not to make an ass of myself in front of my mate. I’ll see what I can do.”

Summer Court is hosting the Summer Solstice Summit and the Night Court is sending their best emissaries to attend. It will be Elain's first time mingling in another court, and it's a good thing she has an expert guiding her: the mate she's been ignoring for the last two years.

Meanwhile, Eris has been sent to the summit to spy on Summer's developments. What he doesn't anticipate is entangling in a steamy, forbidden romance.

Post-ACOSF, Elucien, Eris x OC, Multi-chapter.

Healer In The Night by @infinitefolklore

Lucien has been away on the continent on a mission. No one has heard from him in over two months. Elain is worried. On a dark and stromy night, he shows up bloody on her doorstep. Elain nurses him back to health.

The Luck Of The Draw by @sad-scarred-sassy

Elain Archeron is determined to end her unwanted mating bond with Lucien Vanserra. She has resigned herself to a loveless life, convinced she will never be able to experience true love without the fabricated weight of an assigned mate.

Her plans take a sharp turn when her mate arrives with a proposition to accompany him on a mission to a foreign court. When no one else believes her capable of succeeding Elain decides to prove to herself and others that she is not as hopeless as everyone else thought.

Only this will mean she will have to face him, and with that all that she has sworn off, battling between not knowing where the mating bond's influence ends and where her true feelings begin.

[thoughtfulfangirling]

2025 Reads

Another number ticked upward on our clocks, a new list to begin. For previous years' lists, start with 2024's list which links to 2023 and so on.

!Macbeth - Shakespeare

Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng

!To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

^All About Me: My Remarkable Life in Show Business - Mel Brooks

^!The Art of War - Sun Tzu translated by Victor Mair

Akata Witch - Nnedi Okorator

~*Nona the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir

^Lies my Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong - James W. Loewen

^Why Civil Reistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict - Erica Chenoweth & Maria Stephan

!The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guin

^The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party - Daniel James Brown

Halfling - S.E. Wendel

~!Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

!Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

~!Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie

Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen

^Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer - James L Swanson

The Sun and the Void - Gabriela Romero Lacruz

^A (Brief) History of Vice: How Bad Behavior Built Civilization - Robert Evans

The Ministry for the Future - Kim Stanley Robinson

The Silver Metal Lover - Tanith Lee

^Debt: The First 5,000 Years - David Graeber

^The Lost Boys: Inside Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave Experiments - Gina Perry

!Dune - Frank Herbert

!The One and Future King - T.H. White

^Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments - Gina Perry

^Men Who Hate Women - Laura Bates

!I,Robot - Isaac Asimov

^Disney-War - James B. Stewart

Last updated 3/04

Currently reading: The Ministry for the Future (audio), A (Brief) History of Vice (print), & Brave New World (with Empty)

! = A Classic * = Reread ^ = Nonfiction ~ = Read with Empty

My Goal this year is to read Classics! And get a more rounded feel for the things that have shaped the media we see today!

[dwimmerlaiks]

hello! good evening! my train was delayed and then I missed my connecting tram and while waiting for the latter I had one of those moments where I felt queasy just because I was so tired. then when I finally arrived at home I had some pistaccios and rosehip tea and went straight to bed. "pistaccios and rosehip tea" sounds so fancy now when in reality it was me standing at the kitchen counter working my way through the first snack I could find and the only thing that would count as a "fun beverage" I had available.

Pistaccios (the roasted, salted kind) are also so nice to snack on because of the haptics. it's like a little project, every single one. gourmet stim tools, maybe.

also, I am nearing the end of my train book (the book I read on the train). I've been reading to kill a mockingbird, I've never read it before. I think for many US-americans it's one of those standard high school reads, yeah? the type you feel some ambivalence towards maybe because you've spent some of your formative years overanalyizing it in a school setting? Or maybe not - I think that's what I heard. It wasn't for me, not being from the US, and the year I went to High School in Maine as an exchange we read Beowulf lol. Oh and!!! Macbeth. I haven't reread either since and don't remember much now. Beowulf was DENSE, for me, tough to read. That year though I was deep in my "russian literature" phase (this sounds ridiculous but to explain I was 17 and tragically in love with my friend, she talked a lot about the books she read.. which naturally became the books I read lol) and that's why I once held a 40 minute presentation about anna karenina in front of my highschool class which I would like to apologize for now to everyone involved. that was probably NOT EASY to have to experience. again, 17, gay, pretentious... my environment had to go through it. but you know, the books I read during that time were a real gift and opened worlds to me. so yay.

Maybe let's take a moment to be thankful to our 17 year old gay pretentious, obsessive selves for opening up worlds, whatever they might have been.

ok weird direction for this post to go in. anyway, trainbooks. I'm glad I read this one (to kill a mockingbird), it offered a lot to me. Next up is handmaid's tale which I also haven't read yet (obviously). am a bit anxious about it.

during summer I read dracula, finally. I'm a little sad I missed the first dracula daily run when everyone was reading it, I'm sure it was fun. but it was fun also to just read it by myself. I've watched and read sooo much vampire media and literature and then to read this finally was... so odd. I kept thinking, wow, actually - this is much more scooby doo in genre. It's like ... much closer to buffy the vampire slayer than like, nosferatu (the new one) lol. anyway that's what stood out to me, just some twenty-somethings forming connections and experiencing life and solving crime!! the vampire bits was just set dressing. (I know that's a simplification but that's the vibe I got and what I enjoyed the most! also why nosferatu (new) was such a let down for me personally. ergh). also van helsing was so. annoying. sorry but can anyone back me up? I started sighing out loud when he started talking hahha. like pleeeease can you hurry up. can you keep it a little shorter. the point, can you get to it!

oh this post is so long now, again. I can't believe I just told van helsing to zip it. I go on and on just like he does!

ok good night! I'm going to doodle and watch youtube and fall asleep.

[thegirlinmaroonsweater]

I'm rereading 'To Kill a mockingbird' because I got jealous when one of my colleagues started talking about Atticus the other day.

50 or not , Atticus Finch is a fine prince of a Man.

I'm not drooling, you are

[according2thelore]

happy wincest wednesday!!! i really want to pay it forward from the ask you sent me last week and ask what you (both?) think sam and dean's favorite books are! i mostly answered based on what books i had already read, so i'm really curious if in the books you've read you'd have different opinions! if not though (or in addition if you'd like!), i'd love to know what you think their favorite movies are, too :) give dean's favorite medium a moment in the spotlight, too 💖 (@incesthemes)

hi! happy wincest wednesday!

hmm--i think sam has a long, enduring, passionate love affair with the hardy boys and nancy drew books. i think he longs in some ways to be the hardy boys/nancy drew, because they get to solve mysteries and be hypercompetent while also having a secure home environment. in nancy's case, she's popular and has a boyfriend and also gets to explore thick tomes of town lore. they were so easy to find at libraries across america, and super easy to steal/shoplift because of how thin they were.

(dean also makes fun of him by calling him a hardy boy for a long time, i imagine. you also cannot tell me dean would not get an absolute fucking kick out of calling sam "nancy")

i also think that as he gets older, he gets more bitter/disillusioned about both series, but still has a secret fondness for seeing their covers in bookstores.

as he gets older (high school age), sam definitely gravitates towards more gothic, as you mentioned! i think he finds wuthering heights compelling, but can't quite put his finger on it, and never tells dean because dean would make fun of him for liking such a girly book. science fiction/horror novellas are also fun to him (frankenstein, poe, dracula, jekyll, the murders in rue morgue).

we know dean is a closet intellectual at his own choice, so i imagine he steals/lifts books from libraries/stores, and keeps them in the bottom of his duffle. i think a lot of this happens after sam leaves for college and dean suddenly has 80 hours of free time a week now that he's not huffing sam's boxers and staring at him lovingly in the rearview mirror.

in terms of books that they had to read (and inevitably read/reread over and over again as they move to schools that haven't read them yet):

sam likes: tale of two cities by dickens, telltale heart by poe, in cold blood by capote, inferno by dante, to kill a mockingbird by lee, yellow wallpaper by gilman, matilda by dahl sam HATES: romeo and juliet by shakespeare, heart of darkness by conrad, a separate peace by knowles (he hates that he finds himself in gene), tess of the d'urbervilles (bc he also hates he strangely relates to it)

dean likes: in cold blood by capote, hamlet by shakespeare, 1984 by orwell, lord of the flies by golding, and then there were none by christie, count of monte christo by dumas, any western he can get his hands on dean HATES: frankenstein by shelley, a good man by o'conner (HATES IT), catcher in the rye by salinger (it makes him angry that he gets called out), lolita by nabokov (it makes him a little nauseous how much he likes it, he agrees that humbert is a pedophile, but the depth of the "devotion" there makes him ill), dense histories like war and peace/tale of two cities/les miserables, etc.; he hates anything by dostoevsky--he finds the morality to be posturing and tiresome

i think they BOTH love the LOTR series--books and movies. as they both canonically watch GOT together as adults (and considering dean is more into LARPing than he likes to admit) i think they both love fantasy.

dean saw two towers while sam was away at college and has been dreaming nonstop of dying in an epic battle protecting those he loves in heroic and sexy ways like in the battle for helms deep.

but he still mostly refuses to watch the parts with frodo/sam in return of the king because "frodo is annoying" (because he gets uncomfortable and scared when frodo and sam touch foreheads and cry and sam picks up frodo because he can't carry the ring but he can carry frodo, and hearing frodo scream sam's name in agony makes him nauseous)

dean swears he likes LOTR for the fights but sam knows better.

(secretly, i think dean used to read chapters of the hobbit to sam when he was really small. it's the first book john buys him after the fire because john grew up with his own dad reading it to him before he disappeared.)

i think as an adult, dean gravitates towards more crime thrillers. they have clean cut endings, and he likes how the main character is usually a grizzled, alcoholic washup looking for redemption with his estranged wife (he completely cannot relate). he also likes brandon sanderson until he finds out Nerds also like them, so he gives up on them.

and i think sam might gravitate towards nonfiction/realistic fiction/historical fiction. he doesn't want to read about quests, he doesn't want to read about chosen ones, he doesn't want to read about brothers having to watch each other die, he doesn't want to read about how Bad is Always Bad.

bonus: they both read 50 shades after the craze in like 2015, and dean was scandalized to read this in a book while sam was like...this is it? he hits her a couple of times??

i've mentioned this a MILLION times, but i think they both love the die hard movie series. mostly the first one, and mostly dean, but they try to catch the marathons on cable every christmas.

dean loves the lost boys (because COME ON OF COURSE HE DOES!!! little brother and vampires and the good guys win! no moral complexity!), ghost busters, roadhouse, quick and fast murder mysteries with easy solutions, dirty dancing, tombstone, rocky, jaws, and--secretly--little women. he cries like a fucking kid being dragged away from a candy store.

sam loves indiana jones, star trek, friday the 13th (bc if he follows the Horror Movie rules, he and his family are safe!), the rear window, ET, it's a wonderful life (a movie about how your life has meaning even if you think you're making everyone's life worse...come on...), and a million arthouse movies about how life is strange and vulnerable.

they both like/watch together: star wars, bill & ted's excellent adventure, die hard, jurassic park, LOTR, the early 2000 fantastic four movies (they're not good, but they're mindless; dean wants to be johnny storm and sammy would DIE to be reed; dean likes to joke that sam's jessica alba instead), oceans 11

sam doesn't like monster movies anymore. dean doesn't like war movies anymore.

THIS WAS SO MUCH LOL I'M SO SORRY--i have a lot of thoughts about their favourite books/movies apparently! thank you so much for this ask--it was SO FUN to answer, lol! <3

i have texted charlotte and will reblog with her opinions when she responds! (she is busy gworl)

-lizzy

[antebellumite]

(since i sense you may be having an atticus finch moment rn) is go set a watchman "canon" to you? i always liked tkam but i never read gsaw (even though someone gave it to me when it came out) because i got a weird feeling about the circumstances of it being published among other things. never talked to anybody about it so figured i'd ask a certified tkam enjoyer

i am having Such an atticus finch moment that i have three fics in the works for him

ohhh boy so hear me out.

warning: i'm rereading tkam as we speak and its been a while since ive read gsaw

in my own personal head-interpretation of to kill a mockingbird, in which the irl reality of its publication is disregarded, gsaw is canon in the sense that it's the alternate universe of to kill a mockingbird, with the point of divergence being the tom robinson trial.

tom robinson is found guilty: atticus experiences Character Growth and becomes and remains the folk hero Defender of Rights and dilf we know today

tom robinson is not found guilty [or at least, not found guilty via the defense atticus uses in gsaw]: atticus basically remains on the natural course he was in the beginning of tkam to bigotry and Racism TM

tldr: gsaw, on its own, is not a good book, and nor is it fully canon, but it does serve as great contextualization to the person that atticus is in tkam and who atticus could have been.

at the beginning of the book and throughout the trial, atticus finch is clearly a very White Moderate in our Modern Terms, in the sense that he might disapprove of the racism exhibited by the citizens of maycomb, but he also is more than content to not do anything about it. his worldview is essentially: "man it sure sucks that my neighbors are prejudiced and more than willing to sentence an innocent man to death, and but i guess i'll tolerate it and spend time around them because they're good people at heart [to other white people]." you know how one of the most memorable lessons atticus teaches to scout is to have empathy for others? my argument is that atticus's practicing of that is what makes him to give too much leeway to the bigoted members of the community around him.

we see this with ike finch, maycomb's "sole surviving confederate veteran" and stonewall jackson fetishist. he makes his appearance early on in the book, prior to the robinson case even being introduced. according to scout, he comes by at least once a year to "rehash the war" with atticus. while i can assume this means that ike is representing the confederacy and atticus the union in this conversation, considering that in the immediate paragraph after, atticus states "this time we aren't fighting the yankees, we're fighting our friends. but remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is still our home." it implies that in this american civil war replay, either both of them are identifying with the confederacy, or ike is and atticus is more than okay to go along with it. and in addition, atticus's apparent determination to remain on good terms with the people of maycomb no matter how bitter it got adds questions to just what he would have considered bitter enough for the people of maycomb to no longer remain his friends. if the mob at the scene at the jailhouse actually managed to lynch tom robinson, which they were probably going to do, until scout saved the day, would that have been "bitter enough" for atticus to reconsider being friends with murderers?

actually the fact that he adds in 'and this is still our home' makes me think he was planning to leave maycomb entirely if that scenerio actually happened but i digress

and then you get to ms. dubose, who serves as another aspect to how atticus views the racism of his town. when ms. dubose dies, he calls her the most bravest person he'd ever known, for having the courage to die clean of her morphine addiction, and also a "great lady". which, i understand, in part, is because she Just Died and he's talking to Jem and Scout who are children, but the way that atticus talks about it makes you feel as though he's implying that her courage serves as either recompense or excuse for a. the racism and b. the whole thing where she essentially verbally harassed jem and scout whenever they came by for the horrid sin of walking where she could see them.

of course there's also maycomb trial in general. atticus obviously knows that he cant win-- the famous 'just because you're licked doesn't mean you can give up' quote-- because he understands the prejudice of the town. but i believe that behind the quote, atticus still had faith in the judicial process, just not in the people who were in charge of it in maycomb. its part of the reason for his appeal-- to get robinson to a higher court where the people there could be more open-minded.

so in essence, atticus at the turning point of his story [ the trial ], is someone who's

1. overly lenient and sympathetic view of his maycomb neighbors allows him to excuse much of the harmful rhetoric and actions they perpetrate

2. considers racism to be, while Bad, a certain type of bad that is ultimately forgivable/excusable. i think there's also evidence in tkam that he basically also thinks the same thing for other forms of bigotry but i'm not going to look for them.

3. has trust in the judicial system

so from there, we have the tom robinson trial.

i like to think that what acting as tom robinson's defense attorney did for atticus was that it forced him to actually reckon with the racism of maycomb as directed towards an actual human being rather than a Nebulous Construct. when tom robinson got declared guilty despite being innocent, it showed him the actual harmful effects of what the people of maycomb believed, on an actual human being, who was subsequently presumably murdered via 17 gunshot wounds. it showed the failures of a system that allowed for tom robinson to be murdered and sentenced for a crime he didn't commit in the first place.

in gsaw, without tom robinson being convicted, i don't think that lesson would have hit so hard. to gsaw!atticus, robinson being declared not guilty is proof that the racism of maycomb is ultimately Not That Harmful, proof that the system ultimately Works As It Should, and it allows him to sink deeper into interactions with more extreme racist individuals, and eventually become the verison of atticus we see in gsaw.

in addition, gsaw!atticus's defense for tom robinson that gets him acquitted is that the robinson's presumed rape of mayella was consensual, whereas tkam!atticus reveals that the rape didn't happen between robinson and mayella in the first place (although, you know.) which implies a contrast between gsaw!atticus and tkam!atticus where tkam!atticus was focused on exonerating robinson's public image in order to then acquit robinson, but gsaw!atticus was focused on acquitting robinson head on, even if it meant attacking mayella instead.

what this would mean is that gsaw!atticus might not even have had all that much of an interaction with tom robinson, and therefore wasn't able to do that whole tkam-trademark Understanding and Seeing Him As A Person, thereby Removing his past Blinders to Injustice TM TM TM.

and this leads to the changes in atticus from tkam and gsaw. they're still the same person, but with a different turning point.

[e-b-reads]

Books of the Month: Sep 2024

The rest of the StoryGraph monthly wrap up means functionally nothing because of the way I use it to record reads, but it's fun to see the trajectory of the reading month! As you can see, I started September still in my cozy mystery season, transitioned to slightly more classic mysteries, and occasionally interjected with completely different books altogether (like a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird I picked up for free from the library!). Here's my books of the month:

The Religious Body (Catherine Aird): I discovered (via Libby and Hoopla) this sort of late-Golden-Age mystery series (first one published in 1966) in September, and have been working my way steadily through it since (though I'm trying not to binge them too quickly). The kind of series where the police detectives are consistent across books but the series mostly isn't about them personally. The first one (The Religious Body) is good and has moments of gentle humor (nuns make very bad witnesses to murder b/c they are all practicing "custody of the eyes"); honorable mention also to The Stately Home Murder (book 3) where the stately home in question does have a noble family residing, but also they let in paying tour groups regularly.

The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels (Janice Hallett): A stand-alone mystery/thriller told through documents (emails, WhatsApp messages, interview transcripts, other research) about a true-crime writer trying to figure out what really happened about 18 years ago with an apparent cult murder/suicide. Any story written as a collection of documents requires a little suspension of disbelief when it comes to just how thorough those documents can get (especially at the end); also I will say (trying to avoid spoilers) that the actual twisty solution to the crime involves some connections and maybe coincidences that also require a little suspension of disbelief. However! All that said, this book had me gripped while reading, and I will be looking up the author's other works. If this is a genre you enjoy, this is a book to check out.

To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee): I doubt I need to give a mini-summary of this one! I don't think I'd reread this since middle or maybe high school. It holds up. Something about the lens of a bright young girl who prefers to wear overalls and is doing her best to understand why people are the way they are really helps to drive home all the messages. It has moments funny, and sweet, and really unfairly sad, because that's how life is. I'm going to hold onto the free copy from the library, even though I discovered after I got home that someone annotated bits of it in purple pen.

[morisbasement]

my reading list so far (in no particular order)

Reread Percy Jackson...

...So I can read the sun and the star

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

The Overcoat by Nikolai Gogol

No Longer Human by Dazai Osamu

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Iliad

The Odyssey

Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

1984 by George Orwell

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

[flickeringflame216]

#5, 8, 12, 17, and 19 for the 2024 reads in review ask game?

5. Crowd Pleaser: Book you would recommend to almost anyone

For a good classic: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee For a short story collection: A Stroke of the Pen by Terry Pratchett For a cozy children's adventure: The Bookwanderers by Anna James For a murder mystery: Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

8. Blorbo Of The Year: Perhaps not your favorite of the year, but contains The Character

Meg from A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle! It was so nice to revisit the first book; I've been slowly working my way through the sequels, but this one is so beloved.

12. Favorite series of the year

The Penderwicks series by Jeanne Birdsall. This was another much-needed reread, and I really enjoyed the audiobook versions read by Susan Denaker.

17. New author (either to you, or with a recent debut) you're hoping to read more of?

Hmm, nothing immediately comes to mind for this one. Several of the new (to me) authors I read this year either have no other works I want to read, or I felt pretty meh about their books. I liked the Terry Pratchett short story collection, though! So maybe I will venture into one of his novels at some point.

19. Favorite old(er) book you read this year

Emma by Jane Austen. (I almost decided to be a smart aleck and say something like Habbakuk or Nehemiah.)

[overwhelmedfernfrond]

Finished 5 assignments, reread To Kill A Mockingbird, and read Foul is Fair :))

A productive weekend :)