# Harper Lee was a Bloom County fan
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 26, 2020, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345 "2020-03-26T17:54:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2020, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/1 "2020-03-26T17:54:45Z")
She asked Berke Breathed to keep Opus around. He brought back Opus for 2 other strips, Outland and Opus.
> **[How Harper Lee (and Donald Trump) Brought Back Bloom County](https://www.wired.com/2016/07/berke-breathed-comic-con/)**
>
> Cartoonist Berkeley Breathed got contemplative about his magnum Opus at a Comic-Con appearance.
Maybe I will now read to kill a mockingbird since I have so much free time now.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2020, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/2 "2020-03-26T18:20:59Z")
Do read it. It’s the greatest work in all of American literature.
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### Author:  [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2020, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/3 "2020-03-26T18:36:05Z")
It really is a really good book and Chronos might be right. I’m hard pressed trying to think of a better book by an American Author.
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### Author:  [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2020, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/4 "2020-03-26T19:39:39Z")
Yes, get the book. I agree with Chronos.
When my son was in high school they read it in class. On one sunny day we talked about it under the apple tree.
But the movie with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, and Mary Badham as Scout, was great too. They fit together so well that Mary Badham called Gregory Peck, Atticus for the rest of his life.
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### Author:  [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2020, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/5 "2020-03-26T20:13:36Z")
ordered a used copy of the book. I will watch the movie after I read it.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [March 26, 2020, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/6 "2020-03-26T22:14:08Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#):
>
> She asked Berke Breathed to keep Opus around. He brought back Opus for 2 other strips, Outland and Opus.
>
> [How Harper Lee (and Donald Trump) Brought Back Bloom County | WIRED](https://www.wired.com/2016/07/berke-breathed-comic-con/)
>
> Maybe I will now read to kill a mockingbird since I have so much free time now.
TKAM was one of only two assigned reading books I had in high school that I ended up liking, well, loving actually.I was sure it was going to be awful, but if I had to reduce my library to, say, ten books, that one would be in it.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2020, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/7 "2020-03-28T12:23:24Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#):
>
> ordered a used copy of the book. I will watch the movie after I read it.
I’ve never seen the movie. But the book is deeply effecting.
It came along at such a time that it’s not too much to say it changed my life.
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2020, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/8 "2020-03-28T13:27:55Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#):
>
> It came along at such a time that it’s not too much to say it changed my life.
I’ve never read the book. Does it have the same effect on adult readers?
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2020, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/9 "2020-03-28T15:55:06Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#):
>
> I’ve never read the book. Does it have the same effect on adult readers?
It is a very good book, a classic, but I can’t say that it changed my life. The film is also excellent.
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### Author:  [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2020, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/10 "2020-03-28T19:44:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Do read it. It’s the greatest work in all of American literature.
Agreed! I say that all the time, it’s an excellent read.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2020, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/11 "2020-03-29T02:05:42Z")
> [@Patx2](#):
>
> Agreed! I say that all the time, it’s an excellent read.
There is Hemingway, Steinbeck, Samuel Clemens, William Faulkner…
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2020, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/12 "2020-03-29T02:19:20Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#):
>
> ordered a used copy of the book. I will watch the movie after I read it.
The book and the movie are very close. The plot is not changed, just some things condensed out ot it. The movie deserved it’s awards. It had Robert Duvall’s first screen appearance. He was important, but had no lines.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/13 "2020-03-29T17:02:55Z")
> [@Baker](#):
>
> He was important, but had no lines.
🙂
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2020, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/14 "2020-03-29T18:46:45Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Quoth **carnivorousplant** :
>
> There is Hemingway, Steinbeck, Samuel Clemens, William Faulkner…
You might be able to make a case for _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ being greater. The rest of those? No.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2020, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/15 "2020-03-29T19:26:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> You might be able to make a case for _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ being greater. The rest of those? No.
I’d put _The Grapes of Wrath_ or \*To Have and Have Not \*up against _To Kill a Mockingbird._🙂
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### Author:  [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2020, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/16 "2020-03-29T19:35:27Z")
I found that Faulkner and Steinbeck were great cures for insomnia.
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### Author:  [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2020, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/17 "2020-03-29T21:19:13Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> You might be able to make a case for _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ being greater. The rest of those? No.
Huck and Moby-Dick
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### Author:  [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2020, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/18 "2020-03-29T21:57:06Z")
(Ahem)
Huck and Moby-Dick are certainly greater. And I second **cp’s** elevation of _The Grapes of Wrath._
John O’Hara’s _Appointment in Samarra_ is a better novel. Ditto Ann Petry’s _The Street_ and Dashiell Hammett’s _Red Harvest._
Also Sinclair Lewis’s _Arrowsmith_, Frank Norris’s _McTeague_, Henry James’s _The Aspen Papers,_ Vladimir Nabokov’s _Pale Fire._
And Richard Wright’s _Native Son._ And e.e. cummings’s _The Enormous Room._. And Hemingway’s _The Sun Also Rises._ And Flannery O’Connor’s _Wise Blood._ And Raymond Chandler’s _Farewell, My Lovely._
Shirley Jackson’s _We Have Always Lived in the Castle._ Richard Brautigan’s _In Watermelon Sugar._ Dawn Powell’s _A Time to Be Born._ Ralph Ellison’s _Invisible Man._
Milt Gross’s _He Done Her Wrong._ Patrick Dennis’s _Little Me._
I can think of more.
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### Author:  [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2020, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/harper-lee-was-a-bloom-county-fan/850345/19 "2020-03-29T22:21:43Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#):
>
> I can think of more.
I see you’ve already posted in [this thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=892683), which seems like a more appropriate place for such a list.
I think that at least some of the books that you mentioned are good in ways that make them more challenging and less accessible than _To Kill A Mockingbird_. The ways that _TKaM_ are good are ways that contribute to its broad appeal.