I've decided that I'm going to read one book every month of this year. That's twelve books, so I think I can manage that. I'm starting with "To Kill a Mockingbird." I can't tell you how many times I was supposed to have read this book in school and again in college. I majored in English, actually. I am sure I even wrote papers and added thoughtful remarks to class discussions on this book, but like most everything I've ever been forced to learn on someone else's time table, it didn't stick.

On my own terms, I am already half way through this book and I have to say, it's significantly better than any of the books in the Twilight series, the last books I can remember reading. I hear all you intelligent people scoffing. "Of course it's better. It won a Pulitzer." But, really, some books the academic community celebrates are like All Bran in my mind's mouth. I have nothing to prove, no one to impress, so I have felt free to enjoy books like those in the Twilight saga with all my heart and even stand in line with the twelve-year-olds to see the movies at midnight. But, with that in mind, naturally, I wondered if I'd like this book or if it would require willpower just to get through it.

But, as I am reading, I find myself constantly checking the book's cover. It looks and even feels like a regular paperback, but you can just tell it "weighs" so much more. No wonder it won a Pulitzer. It's the kind of book that can change one reader's life at a time until it changes the whole world.