Reading Together

2009 Reading Together Selection
All Over but the Shoutin’ by Rick Bragg
This is the moving account of one man’s determination to rewrite his family history and to carve out a life for himself based on the strength of his mother’s encouragement and belief. Rick Bragg was born in the pinewoods of Alabama to a mean-tempered, hard-drinking, mostly absent father and a strong-willed, loving mother, who struggled to protect her sons from the effects of poverty and ignorance.

2009 Reading Together Selection
Ava’s Man by Rich Bragg
The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of All Over but the Shoutin’ continues his personal history of the Deep South with the story of his mother’s childhood during the Great Depression, and the story of the man who raised her. Charlie Bundrum was a roofer, a carpenter, a whiskey-maker, a fisherman who made boats out of car hoods He was a man who took giant steps in rundown boots, a true hero whom history would otherwise have been overlooked.

2009 Reading Together Selection
The Prince of Frogtown This is Rick Bragg’s most recent memoir The Prince of Frogtown is the story of Jacksonville, Alabama, a mill town where the workers worked hard, drank hard, and died hard. It is about Charles Bragg, Rick’s hard drinking father, and his family, and it is Bragg’s own story of learning to love a boy who was not the tough hard-fighting boy that he was in his own boyhood.

*You might want to invite local authors to your book groups. Most authors visit groups for food and the opportunity to join into a discussion about their work.