MY SOUTHERN JOURNEY Review

Amazon   Rick at Southern Living (w/ video interview)    FB

My thoughts...4.5 stars

MY SOUTHERN JOURNEY is a collection of articles and essays on a cornucopia of subjects particular to the South.  As anyone who’s blessed enough to be from or live in the South can tell you it’s much more than a geographic area; it’s a way of life, a mindset you take with you even if you’re living in the frozen tundra. As Mr. Bragg says in his Afterword, MY SOUTHERN JOURNEY is a love song to our unique, colorful, beloved South.

As a Georgian living in Michigan I find myself drawn to books by Southern writers and or set in the South. It’s soothing and eases the bouts of homesickness that hit outta the blue.

I savored MY SOUTHERN JOURNEY like I would one of Ma’s biscuits. What I wouldn’t give if I could only have one again. The world around me may have been whizzing by but I was moseying on dirt back roads, fishing, wading in a creek, and enjoying fish fries, BBQ, and food like you can’t get anywhere else. In my head the dulcet drawl of the words, along with the images and memories they conjured, were comfort food for my mind and soul.

MY SOUTHERN JOURNEY is told with love, humor, and a “warts and all” honesty by a man who truly loves and understands the South. I highly recommend it for displaced (often misunderstood) Southerners, those who love the South, and even those still there. A keeper.

Rick Bragg is a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and the bestselling author of All Over but the Shoutin’, Ava’s Man, and The Prince of Frogtown. Bragg, who has written for numerous magazines, including Southern Living, Sports Illustrated and Food & Wine, was a newspaper reporter for two decades, covered high school football for the Jacksonville News, and, among other topics, Islamic fundamentalism for The New York Times. He has won more than 50 significant writing awards, in books and journalism, including, twice, the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award.