"I remember starting it and just devouring it, not being able to get enough of it, beacuse I fell in love with Scout....I wanted to be Scout and I wanted a father like Atticus."---Oprah Winfrey"One of the most telling lines that I hear from early pioneers in the [Civil Rights] movement is that `we had liberated not just black people, we liberated white people.' I think that Harper Lee helped liberate white people with that book."---Tom Brokaw"I promised myself that when I grew up and I was a man, I would try to do things just as good and noble as what Atticus had done for Tom Robinson."---Scott Turow"You know that famous quote Lincoln [reportedly] said to Harriet Beecher Stowe: `Oh, here's the little lady whose book caused such a big war.' The same can be said of Harper Lee.... To Kill a Mockingbird was one of the most influential novels, not necessarily in a literary sense, but in a social sense."---Mark ChildressScout, Atticus & Boo includes reflections on To Kill a Mockingbird from Mary Badham, Boaty Boatwright, Rick Bragg, Tom Brokaw, the Reverend Thomas Lane Butts, Rosanne Cash, Mark Childress, Jane Ellen Clark, Allan Gurganus, David Kipen, Wally Lamb, Alice Finch Lee, James McBride, Diane McWhorter, Jon Meacham, Allison Moorer, James Patterson, Anna Quindlen, Richard Russo, Lizzie Skurnick, Lee Smith, Adriana Trigiani, Mary Tucker, Scott Turow, Oprah Winfrey, and Andrew Young.To Kill a Mockingbird may well be our national novel. It is the first adult novel that many of us remember reading, one book that millions of us have in common. It sells nearly a million copies a year, more than any other twentieth-century American classic. Harper Lee's first and only novel, published in July 1960, is a beloved classic and touchstone in American literary and social history.To mark the fiftieth anniversary of To Kill a Mockingbird, Mary McDonagh Murphy reviews its history and examines how the novel has left its mark on a broad range of novelists, historians, journalists, and artists.In compelling interviews, Anna Quindlen, Tom Brokaw, Oprah Winfrey, James Patterson, James McBride, Scott Turow, Wally Lamb, Andrew Young, Richard Russo, Adriana Trigiani, Rick Bragg, Jon Meacham, Allan Gurganus, Diane McWhorter, Lee Smith, Rosanne Cash, and others reflect on when they first read the novel, what it means to them---then and now---and how it has affected their lives and careers. Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a lively appreciation of the many ways in which the novel has made---and continues to make a difference to generations of readers.Harper Lee has not given an interview since 1964, but Murphy's reporting, research, and rare interviews with the author's sister and friends stitch together a brief history of how the novel, as well as the acclaimed 1962 movie, came to be. Read Less