Monday, September 20, 2010

Reading the classics

Friday's installment of Literary Lunches featured the words of Harper Lee's famous character Scout spoken by WDAZ news reporter Brady Mallory. Scout is the narrator of  Lee's classic To Kill A Mockingbird.

Mallory's excerpted the following: When Mrs Dubose insults Atticus Finch, his son Jem destroys her camelias. Dubose demands retribution in the form of Jem coming to read to her every day. Jem is only released from reading each day when Dubose's alarm clock rings. Unbeknownst to Jem, every day she sets the alarm to go off a few minutes later than it did the day before, thus extending the reading time. When Dubose dies a few months later, Jem learns that she had been using this reading time to distract her mind while she weaned herself off morphine, so she could die free and clear, beholden to no one nor anything. Jem learns that even though he thought he was only working off his punishment, he was, in fact, doing a great service to Dubose.

The Big Read, a month of activities, speakers and performances to encourage and celebrate reading, will kick off Monday [today]with a party that will give away copies of The Big Read’s focus book, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien.
The event launch will be from 3 to 4 p.m. Monday on the sixth floor of the Grand Forks County Building in downtown Grand Forks. The Big Read is sponsored by the Grand Forks Public Library and other community organizations.
“The kickoff event on Sept. 20 will be an opportunity to learn more about the Big Read and pick up a free copy of ‘The Things They Carried,’” Wendy Wendt, director of the Grand Forks Public Library, said in a news release. (from The Grand Forks Herald)

For more on O'Brien and The Things They Carried, click here.

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