'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'

A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this enchanting classic - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl.

Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties.

The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice.

But the weight of history will only tolerate so much...

Deep down I've wanted to read this book for a long time, probably since I saw the wonderful movie with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. It took my Book Break book club to pick Classic Literature for me to decide resolutely to get myself a copy. Classics scare me, and trying to find accessible (non-slushy Jane Austin types), interesting books is difficult. I suppose my main problem is that I like contemporary life too much to want to read a lot of out of date books. To Kill a Mockingbird still feels incredibly relevant, with the amount of racist shit still going on. The area I live in is particularly narrow minded, and sometimes I despair at the attitudes. It's important not only to be reminded how far we've come since a black man accused of raping a white woman would be found guilty as a matter of course. That doesn't mean there isn't still a huge way left to go, and if a book can be written well and tell an important story too, fantastic.