(image credit: LA Times)

Frank McCourt has passed away at the age of 78 after recently falling ill.  Angela’s Ashes was one of the very fist memoirs that I ever read (in fact, I’ve given it away more than once here on my blog), and it was because of it that I now count memoirs among one of my most favorite genres to read.  I think now would be a good time to read both Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis and dive into Teacher Man which I’ve had sitting on my shelf for much too long.  He will be missed.

Read this great piece from the LA Times.

Briefly stated, set during the great depression in Alabama, To Kill a Mockingbird is about the injustices of the world as seen through nine year old Scout’s eyes.   Through her father, brother, classmates, neighbors, and fellow townsmen, Scout learns about justice, equality, prejudice, social status, moral nature, sympathy, judgment and love.

If you haven’t read To Kill a Mockingbird, what are you waiting for?  Seriously.  So glad I picked this one up again.

Quotes from To Kill a Mockingbird (because Harper Lee just says it so well):

Because I could never ask you to mind me again.  Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally.  This one’s mine, I guess.  You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will:  you just hold your head high and keep those fists down.  No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat.  Try fighting with your head for a change . . . – Atticus to Scout

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.   – Atticus to Jeb

What I meant was, if Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he wouldn’t be as hard as some men are at their best.  There are just some kind of men who-who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results. -Miss Maudie

Atticus said to Jem, “I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds.  Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever hear Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.  “You’re father’s right,” she said.  “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy.  They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.  That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”  – Scout

The witnesses for the state.have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption-the evil assumption-that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.  Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you.  You know the truth, the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men cannot be trusted around women, black or white.  But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.  – Atticus

They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself.  The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience. – Atticus

As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it-whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash. – Atticus

If there’s just one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something.  I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time.  It’s because he wants to stay inside. – Jem to Scout

When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake.  But don’t make a production of it.  Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em.  – Atticus

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view–until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.-Atticus

Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.  – Scout

You are too young to understand it … but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of–oh, of your father. – Miss Maudie

Have you read this one lately?  Thoughts?  On a sidenote, when I was in high school I had the pleasure of meeting Gregory Peck, who plays Atticus in the movie, at a function at the performing arts theater that I worked at.  I’m sure they made us watch the movie in high school but I can’t recall it now.  Is it worth watching?

FICTION
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)

DRAMA
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts

HISTORY
What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)

BIOGRAPHY
Eden’s Outcasts by John Matteson (W.W. Norton)

POETRY
Time and Materials by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins)

POETRY
Failure by Philip Schultz (Harcourt)

GENERAL NONFICTION
The Years of Extermination by Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins)

MUSIC
The Little Match Girl Passion by David Lang (G. Schirmer)

See all the winners including journalism and special citations here.  See the entire list of Pulitzer Prize winners here.

The Pulitzer Prize, started by New York World publisher Joseph Pulitzer is awarded each year for books published the previous year. The Pulitzer Prize is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in print journalism, literary achievements, and musical composition. It is administered by Columbia University in New York City.