Rating: 
Summary: Very moving and honest biography.
Review: To write about one's family is very difficult, especially when said family is very poor and dysfunctional. Rick Bragg succeeded in describing things the way they were, but meanwhile bringing forward the courage and dignity of his mother and other family members. It is a deeply moving story that well deserved the Pulitzer Prize. I was so impressed with the author that I am looking for his columns in the New York Times, but to date, without any luck.
Rating:
Summary: Two thumbs up!
Review: This is a beautifully written memoir with wonderful phrases and images on nearly every page. Here are a few of my favorites:"I was sitting in a cramped living room in a crumbling housing project, listening to a hollow-eyed and pitiful young woman tell how her little boy had been killed one morning by a stray bullet as he stood in the doorway, his book satchel in his hand, like a little man going to work." "I couldn't hammer a nail without bending it or severly damaging myself or someone standing near, and if you had depended on me to feed the fire or the hog we would have froze to death, huddled with our emaciated pig." "The sun did not shine down, it bored into you, through your hat and hair and skull, until you could feel it inside your very brain, till little specks of that sun seemed to break away and dance around, just outside your eyes." While I greatly admire Bragg's mother for the sacrifices she made for her children, and admire Bragg for his triumph over adversity, the book does not leave me believing that Bragg is a good man. He is proud of his accomplishments, as he should be. But he is selfish, immature and a bit of a hot-head. While his book is one of the best I've read in a long time, he's not the kind of person I would seek out as a friend. And I'm sure that doesn't bother him a bit.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!!!!
Review: An absolutely unbelieveable book. Bragg's writng style, in itself, is worth the read. Moving beyond words.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining up-from-the bootstraps story
Review: While attempting to tell his mother's story, Rick Bragg actually ends up telling us a lot more about himself. His rise from backwater poverty (Possum Trot - no kidding - AL) to Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter is quite a story in and of itself. Bragg's southern voice is evident throughout and you could sense how much his roots stick with him, even now, with many years lived as a city slicker. That these roots serve him marvelously as a writer is irrefutable. The book is never so eloquent as when Bragg writes of human pain -- his own and others -- and whether it be from poverty or tragedy. It's clear why this guy has been recognized as an outstanding features writer.
Rating:
Summary: I see my southern roots as an asset now!!!
Review: This is the first book that I have read in a year that I read every single syllable. I was born and raised in TN. This puts all of the things that were uncomfortable in my raising, including my relatives in a whole new light. It makes me want to have another look at the things that make me ME! Rick Bragg is a master! Such beautiful writing.
Rating:
Summary: THIS IS A SUPRISINGLY POWERFUL BOOK! A GREAT FIND!
Review: I CAME ACROSS THE BOOK BY ACCIDENT AND WAS SO GLAD I FOUND IT! I FOUND THIS BOOK SO POWERFUL...RICK BRAGG USES SIMPLE WORDS BUT CONVEYS POWERFUL EMOTIONS. I DID NOT FIND THIS BOOK EGOTISICAL AS OTHER REVIEWERS DID! I VIEW RICK BRAGG AS A PROUD PERSON, WHO DID NOT WALLOW IN SELF PITY OVER HIS SOCIAL-ECONOMIC STATUS. IN ADDITION, HE REALIZES HIS SHORTCOMINGS AND IS NOT AFRAID TO ADMIT THEM. I DO NOT FIND THAT A MARK OF AN EGOTISICAL PERSON. ACTUALLY, IT SOUNDS AS IF HE KNOWS WHO HE IS AND FROM WHERE HE CAME. BESIDES, IF I OVERCAME THE OBSTACLES HE DID, I WOULD BE A BIT PROUD OF MYSELF TOO! I WAS TOUCHED BY HOW HE NEVER LOST SIGHT OF WHO HE IS AND WHERE HE CAME FROM...HIS EMOTIONAL BOND TO HIS MOTHER IS ADMIRABLE AND VERY SWEET! THIS WAS A JOY TO READ AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!
Rating:
Summary: Very honest and thoughtful book
Review: I found the honesty with which Rick Bragg writes to be almost disarming. The book was a pleasure to read. Thank-You, Dean Matheson
Rating: 
Summary: An ode to myself
Review: I picked up this book because I thought it would be in the same moving tradition of "The Color of Water" instead the reader was "treated" to a book about the life an times of an over-inflated ego of a marginal writer. The only reason it got a NYT "notable" book of the year is because he is on the payroll!
Rating:
Summary: If only this book really was about his mother!
Review: I've read two thirds of this book, and that might be as far as I can go. I was so hopeful, considering the great reviews, the radio nterviews, the back cover copy. But I think the publishers intentionallly misrepresented this book, positioning it as a Southern Angela's Ashes, rather than as a journalist's brag book. Maybe if I were a man or a journalist I might enjoy, in an ironical way, his ridiculous false bravado and self-congratulatory war stories. But I feel as if I'm trapped on a long bus ride beside a man who just won't shut up about himself. I only care when he writes about people other than himself and his good-ol'-boy friends. Too much cliche, too little real self-revelation or true compassion. Read the first section and then stop.
Rating:
Summary: Capote-like in its detailed simplicity
Review: Upon reading this book, I could readily understand how Bragg won the Pulitzer. It contains a normal amount of egotism for a sincere autobiography; as a retired English teacher, I wish that more of my students had been able to acquire his style and his appreciation of what to some pseudo-sophisticates would be deemed trivial. My emotions ran the gamut upon reading the book - from laughter to tears, and I really think that readers from the South can empathize more with it than the Yankee-types to whom he often refers. I llked it very much!
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