Better late than never?

News - in the world of books, at least - doesn't come much more surprising than the revelation that, 60 years after To Kill A Mockingbird hit bookshelves, Harper Lee is to publish a second novel. Kevin Shields and Axl Rose, eat your hearts out.

Go Set A Watchman is the book Lee was originally working on, but was persuaded to put to one side and focus on the childhood of one of its characters, Scout Finch. Not that everyone is delighted by the news, though, as Jezebel's Madeleine Davies makes clear. The timing of the publication is suspicious, coming less than three months after the death of Alice Lee, the sister and lawyer who guarded her from the literary world, and there's a worry that the old and (by some accounts) senile author may now be being exploited for financial gain by others.

(Thanks to James and Polly for the links.)