Rating: 
Summary: A captivating southern voice
Review: I first saw Rick Bragg on C-Span BookTV and was impressed by his candor, vulnerability, and affection for the audience. ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTIN' is a delightful and moving book about one man's rise from poverty into the heights of the publishing world. From the opening, I was captivated by the author's voice and style. I started reading paragraphs to friends and recommending it to people who would appreciate this sensitive and very real memoir. His specific details made events and people come alive. He brought me to tears and laughter and made me want to write about some of my own memories. I, who usually read several books at the same time, couldn't put it down. Six stars for this one. ~Joan Mazza, author of DREAM BACK YOUR LIFE and DREAMING YOUR REAL SELF
Rating: 
Summary: Bragg brags, but he can write.
Review: Bragg proves once again that he is a master story teller. As a journalist who is experimenting with memoir on the side, I can appreciate the differences Bragg describes in writing about other people's lives vs. his own. He aptly captures the mixed feelings journalists have when they're proud of writing a good story about a sad event. And he writes about that place between life and death where the tension and drama are. Where the stories are. On the down side, Bragg appears a bit full of himself in the novel. This was disappointing to me as a long-time fan of Bragg's journalistic work. But on the other hand, (whether he intended to or not), he allowed readers to see his imperfection. The sentence structure was somewhat troubling, at first. Bragg uses long sentences broken up with dashes (sometimes in confusing places). This occassional awkwardness interrupted an otherwise clean narrative. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to understand more about class struggle, anyone who can appreciate a debt owed to a mother, and especially to all the journalists looking in a bookstore for someone who can understand their struggle to tell other people's stories.
Rating:
Summary: Wondeful memoir
Review: "All Over But The Shoutin'" is part memoir, and part ode to the author's mother. Throughout their tough life as very poor whites in the Deep South (a trailer park would have been a "move up"), Rick Bragg's mother sacrificed herself for the hope that her sons would end up in a better place. Bragg neither romanticizes this life, nor does he dwell on the hardships. Although he talks about having a chip on his shoulder, the author does not whine, but simply trudges ahead with the conviction that he can do what he loves, and do it well. Rick made it out of that hardscrabble world based on his writing talent. Without a formal education, he progressed from writing about local sports at a weekly newspaper to, ultimately, winning the Pulitzer Prize for feature reporting at the New York Times. The second portion of the book chronicles his progress and travels in the newspaper business. The chapter about his mother's first trip on a plane to go to the Pulitzer ceremonies is wonderful. Beyond telling a moving story, this book is beautifully written. Bragg has an amazing talent for story-telling; it is not surprising that he is such a success as a journalist. I cannot more highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: I can't review this book. I'm not worthy
Review: For so long I thought the goal of my life should be winning the Pulitzer prize. Rick Bragg's book taught me otherwise. There's a point when he talks to an aspiring journalist who desperately wants his career. He later wishes he had told her to not let the good things in life pass her by. A-men.
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Summary: Real Life
Review: This is a very personal story of a childhood that almost wasn't, grim rural poverty, and the strength of an unusual woman (Brag's mother). Like Angela's Ashes, it takes the reader to a childhood no one could envy, from which the author somehow emerges as a searingly honest storyteller. Unlike Ashes, however, the author (although clearly scarred) is not bitter (about the baby brother who died, for example). Angela's Ashes made me want to cry; All Over but the Shoutin' makes me want to read everything Mr. Bragg has ever written.
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Summary: Great read about the southern culture
Review: I stumbled across this book at the University of the South where it was required freshman reading. Being a northerner of southern lineage I decided to give it a try and was very impressed. Bragg writes wonderfully about his mother and his experiences growing up in the South.
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Summary: The second time I wished there was a 6th star.
Review: The first time was when I read Mr. Bragg's other book "Somebody Told Me". In that collection of articles he had written I came across the following sentence, "This is a place where grandmothers hold babies on their laps under the stars and whisper in their ears that the lights in the sky are holes in the floor of heaven." It is very difficult to say something unique or clever about the way he writes. He would dismiss any suggestion that he "brings" something to a story. Even the professional reviewers have resorted to linking his name with some of the greatest writers who have taken the time to share their craft with us; Melville, Faulkner, and those who brought us "Huck Finn" and "Holden Caulfield", and Mr. Bragg is still a young writer who has scores of books to come. The only thing this man lacks is pretense, or if you prefer, false pride. Someone said he had "lent dignity" to the people in one of his stories, he felt that comment was wrong and said "All I did was write what was there", and another time, "It wasn't that I had gotten it right-God knows I mess up a lot-but that I had gotten it true". I believe he writes for the individuals and groups he writes about. We are just the lucky witnesses, the beneficiaries of one man's amazing talent. Reading cannot get better than this.
Rating:
Summary: More than a Memoir
Review: Rick Bragg clearly believes that before you can know where you're going, you have to look at where you've been. With a mix of humor, bitterness, and gratitude, he describes his upbringing in rural Alabama, his family, and particularly his mother, who sacrificed everything in her life to make sure that her sons survived. All Over but the Shoutin' is raw, sweet, funny, and angry. Moreover, it's an honest account of what it took for Rick Bragg to overcome the poverty of his childhood to become a Pulitzer Prize winner, with all of the stumbling blocks, heartbreak, laughter, and family in between. This book will touch anyone who's ever been poor, ever been Southern, or ever taken an honest look at how they got to where they are and given credit where credit is due.
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Summary: Heartwarming True Story
Review: I loved this powerful story of how someone with the background and experiences growing up that the author had could climb to such extreme success. This story affected me like the movie "Rocky"...I wanted to stand up and cheer!
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Summary: Rick Bragg is a genius
Review: I have never read such a beautiful, moving memoir. Rick Bragg is a gift writer who has been blessed with the ability to reach out from the pages of his book and snatch the reader into his world. Rarely does a book reduce me to tears, but Rick Bragg's story almost demands that the reader keep a box of tissues close at hand. I would leap at the chance to meet him, and I will buy his next book without even hearing a word about it. Rick Bragg is just that good.
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