Summer is for reading.

I am determined to pass along some of my books to others so I have embarked on a reading renaissance.  I am going through my books and selecting those that I don't absolutely love, to read again and then donate or lend to others.  After reading my copy of "To Kill A Mockingbird" my husband found a biography of Harper Lee at our library.  He read it then I read it.  The library is a nice walk just across the street so I am sure we'll be spending more time there.  "Mockingbird" by Charles J Shields was an interesting look at Harper Lee's life, particularly after she wrote her Pulitzer prize-winning novel (on her first try).  Her characters were based on people she grew up with, family and her experiences and it's no wonder she didn't publish a second "great American novel," when she put so much of herself into the first.  She spent years avoiding the limelight created by her masterpiece and said she was overwhelmed by the attention and response to her novel.  It sounds as if she has had a very comfortable life, still going strong in her 80's, and very much the person she was when she was a girl in Alabama in the 30's.  She may not have been as big a "personality" as her friend, Truman Capote (by her own choice), but when your first attempt at publishing is the best selling novel of the 20th century, that's a much more enduring legacy.