To Kill a Mockingbird [Re]Read + Giveaway

Giveaway now closed. 

In anticipation of the publication of Harper Lee’s prequel/sequel Go Set a Watchman on the 14th July, the publisher William Heinemann has launched a ten day reading challenge. The idea’s simple: between May 21st and 31st, you re-read, or indeed read, To Kill a Mockingbird.

I’m taking part for two reasons: one, it’s years since I last read To Kill a Mockingbird and two, it makes perfect sense to me to re-read it before Go Set a Watchman arrives so I can see how the two work together.

During the ten days, the publishers are releasing lots of material around To Kill a Mockingbird, they’ll be asking you to share photos of your well-loved copies of the book and they’ll be hosting competitions to win copies of Go Set A Watchman to be sent out to lucky recipients as soon as the book is published in July. All this is happening across their Go Set a Watchman channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.

Like many people, I first read To Kill a Mockingbird at school: it was one of my GCSE texts. I remember loving it and, as a consequence of growing up in a small, predominantly white town in the north of England, feeling that I’d been made to consider issues I probably hadn’t thought about before.

The edition we read at school had this cover:

Apologies for the quality of the image, it took me ages to find a photograph of that cover. So long, in fact, I started to think I’d imagined it.

I bought my own copy and re-read it at some point in my twenties. I wanted to read it as an adult and see if it was as powerful as I remembered it being. It must have been because I wrote a short story of my own based on the character of Boo Radley.

Now, I have a copy of the latest edition, which has the cover I think I like most out of the three.

And not only do I have a copy, but you could have one too! (That was smooth, right?) Thanks to William Heinemann, I have three copies to give away to UK based readers. If haven’t read To Kill a Mockingbird before, you don’t own a copy or you fancy one of the gorgeous new editions to join in the reread, all you need to do is leave a comment below before 2pm tomorrow (Friday 22nd May). Winners will be drawn at random after the closing time and notified as soon as possible.

Thanks to William Heinemann for the giveaway.

Giveaway winner:

As usual, I’ve allocated everyone a number in order of entry:

1 – Carys
2 – Nordie
3 – PoppyPeacockPens
4 – Bev
5 – Crimeworm
6 – Lisa Farrell
7 – Vanessa Matthews
8 – Susan Chafer
9 – Swazi
10 – Charlottetobitt
11 – Bookboodle
12 – Claire
13 – Marian Fievez
14 – George Worboys Wright
15 – Helen
16 – Heaven Ali
17 – Natalie Crossan
18 – Elle
19 – Kim Neville
20 – Sally Collingwood
21 – Clairew137
22 – mrsredwhite214
23 – Ali Archer
24 – Teresa S
25 – Lindasbookbag

 

The winners are Natalie Crossan, Sally Collingwood and Kim Neville. Congratulations all. Check your emails for what to do next. Thanks to everyone else for entering.