"Pass the damn ham, please."

BAM. Day seven of writing my face off is here. I am so in love with this whole process. 

Day seven: "What's the most important book you've ever read?"



Daaaaaamn. This question. SO many answers. This huge part of my heart wants to say The Harry Potter series, duh. I was 14 when I picked up The Chamber of Secrets and I was 22 when The Deathly Hallows came out. Those books were my heart and soul for so many years. And they still are in so many ways. I mean, I could go on and on about books. Important books. Books that have changed my life. 16 year old me would want to tell you how important The Bell Jar is. How it changed my life and inspired me to write. I could go on and on listing amazing and important books that I love with all my heart. 

But I have to say the most important book I have ever read is To Kill a Mocking Bird. It is filled with so much wisdom and so many lessons. There is so much worth in that book. “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what." Bam. That's it. Those words mean so much, say so much. “They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

Over and over Harper Lee filled the pages with lessons, with observations, with so much meaning. "Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)... There are just some kind of men who - who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.” Her words, her wisdom, and her lessons are important. At the end of the day I have to say To Kill a Mocking Bird is the most important book I have ever read.
“As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, he is trash.”