On buying books

Today is the release day for the much-hyped "Go Set a Watchman," which is apparently, depending on who you listen to, a sequel-ish to To Kill a Mockingbird (in that Scout is a grown-up), or, what seems more likely to me because of one big leaked plot point, an alternate-universe version of it.

Apparently Lee wrote this book first, and then, on advice from publishers, redrafted, rewrote (and some say, had assistance from Truman Capote) and developed "To Kill a Mockingbird," which I dare say is one of the best-loved books of its era. (And I'm pretty fond of it, too. I first read it at 14 or so which is probably about the perfect age to first read it)

I also have to say I am deeply fond of the movie that was made based on it as well (and have actually seen the movie more recently than I read the book  - I own both, the movie on dvd and the book in the nice Folio Society edition that came out a few years ago)

I don't, right now, have plans to read "Go Set a Watchman." Part of it is, I'm a little suspicious of the circumstances: Harper Lee, though apparently still in possession of her faculties, is up there in years, and previous to now, apparently didn't want the book published. And her sister, who was her attorney, recently died, and a new attorney took over.....and I admit, when I first heard of the release of the book, I found myself wondering if Lee could be having financial difficulties....I had also heard some people who saw "advance sections" or whatever you call it, that it wasn't as good, the prose wasn't as polished.

But I also admit, the difference in Atticus Finch between the two novels is another reason. You may call me immature if you wish, or naive, or whatever term you want, but I want a few heroes in literature/movies/whatever that are really, truly 100% hero. Not heroes-with-feet-of-clay. Not heroes-that-are-actually-antiheroes-that-manage-to-sort-of-redeem-themselves. And in the new book, it does seem Atticus has either developed - or possibly, always had - feet of clay. And meh, I know, "that's how real life is" but part of the reason I like to read (and part of the reason why I have the full run of Andrew Lang's Fairy Books) is that I like being able to escape real life a little bit from time to time, and get a glimpse of a place where people are better than people actually are, or things are nicer than they actually are, or where being a good and kind person is actually, tangibly, materially rewarded (clever rewrites of that fairy tale about the frogs and toads notwithstanding).

And I openly admit it's childish to say "I don't want my headcanon ruined!" but honestly, that's part of it. I'm not ready to be told that Atticus Finch was really a racist who looked down on African-Americans.

So yeah. I admit, reading a snippet of it put up somewhere - about grown Scout taking a train trip home, I was briefly intrigued, but I think still, I'm not going to read it until lots of other people have, if then. Just not up for bad surprises, and this book feels like it's got a few of them.

Also, I have to say about the hype for it: it feels very manufactured to me. I don't know anyone among my book-buying colleagues and friends who has expressed excitement about this coming out, or who has said "I'm gonna go buy it on the first day!" And I remember that about the Harry Potter books, even among a few childless adults: the fact that they went and *waited in line until midnight* to get the book, the whole party atmosphere - it doesn't seem to be here. It feels to me like the publisher is pushing this on a customer base that is, it seems to me, by and large going, "We don't want New Atticus Finch; we want Atticus Classic."

So anyway.

That said, I did order a couple of *other* books yesterday. Yeah, yeah, I don't need *more* books but two of these are "permanent copies" (nice hardbacks) of books I love but have only in paperback, so I'll probably give the paperbacks away (maybe even make it a blog giveaway, if someone wants them!)  when the hardbacks come. Folio Society was doing its summer sale, and they had a couple of either republications of, or "whoops, there were a few boxes of these left in the warehouse" of older books. One was Father Brown Stories, which I've enjoyed (I also enjoy the current ones running on PBS with Arthur Weasley* got up as Father Brown even though they are set at a much later time and considerably changed from Chesterton's original stories) and the other is "Diary of a Provincial Lady" which is an extremely funny and arch book and which I enjoyed greatly even in a not-that-great paperback copy (It was one of those print-on-demand jobs and a few of the pages aren't aligned perfectly).

(*Not really but it's the same actor and I can't think of his name at the moment, and anyway, it amuses me to imagine Mr. Weasley masquerading as a muggle to learn about them)

So it makes me happy to get good "permanent" copies of those (and I really need to weed my other books to make room).

I also ordered "Gods, Graves, and Scholars," which is a fairly famous book on the history of archaeology, and given my interest in it (and current reading of some archeological stuff), I wanted a copy.

I also ordered, from Amazon, an "intelligent non-specialist" book on epigenetics, hopefully it is good. I want to learn more about this. (But sadly, like so much, you have to be careful: there were some books listed there that smacked strongly of being self-help books where they used "epigenetics" in the title, apparently some people believe you can change your gene expression by *thinking* about it, which, in my limited understanding of epigenetics, does not seem correct. But seriously, one of them almost was "Change your Gene Expression to Win Friends and Influence People." Ugh.)