Tuesday, June 15, 2010

All praise the Mockingbird

BBC News - Why is To Kill A Mockingbird so popular?

As this year is its 50th anniversary of publication, maybe there will be more articles like this around.

The only thing I find odd is this:

On the eve of its 50th birthday, To Kill A Mockingbird still has a generation of schoolchildren transfixed, while regularly figuring high on lists of the country's "favourite books".

A poll for World Book Day placed it fifth, behind Pride and Prejudice but ahead of the Bible. A similar BBC one puts it sixth.
I can only assume that more women answer World Book Day polls than men.

2 comments:

TimT said...

Yeah, I think figures indicate that women read more than men typically so it's no surprise that they vote more about the books that they read more.

Pride and Prejudice really is fabulous and deserves to be up there; it's fame, though, owes much more to the BBC serial and the subsequent wave of Austen enthusiasm encouraged by the cinema industry. It's a mass market media phenomena, not strictly a male/female thing.

Steve said...

I knew I could flush you out to defend P&P, Tim! :)