I read different books in different ways. There is the physical copy route, where I own an actual three-dimensional book, and attack it at various places with my blue highlighter. There is also the Kindle route, where somebody in a cloud somewhere saves all my magic highlights. And then there is the audio route, where you get to listen to somebody, and perhaps even the author, read a book to you. This book, Where I Come From, was an audio read for me, which I recommend, because Rick Bragg’s subject matter and Rick Bragg’s accent paired very nicely. They went together like tomatoes on white bread with mayo.
A good writer is someone who can hold your fascinated interest in his description of something you were not all that interested in . . . or wouldn’t ever be interested in, apart from having heard the author describe it. Rick Bragg is that kind of writer, and because he has a pick-up load of pungent descriptions of pretty much everything he sees, he makes you want to go see it too. Or perhaps, with some of his descriptions, you feel like you don’t need to go see it now because he already showed it to you.
Here is a man who can make you want to go to New Orleans, just to get something to eat. He will ensure that you never look at a skinny dog the same way again. You will find yourself wanting to figure out how you could get to Mobile Bay in such a way as to be able to see a jubilee. This is a book that will feed your innards.
A good friend recommended this book to me, which is the kind of thing good friends do.
Thanks!
Purchased it already. Just what I need right now to balance out all the “heavy” reading I’ve been doing of late, as we navigate troubled times . . . read / listened to the sample excerpt on Amazon . . . a much needed reminder that there is a God above who made goats after their kind and declared that it was good!
Blessings,
JG
I love his monthly contributions to Southern Living.
Doug, I recommend the novel, A Glastonbury Romance, by John Cowper Powys.
An extraordinary meditation on the subliminal way in which Christ and paganism vie for influence in mystical, small town England. Truly breathtaking.
God bless
Brendan
I read a guide to entering the audiobook narrator and voiceover profession once which said the reader should either be free of regional accents, or able to hide them. While I get where they were coming from, it made me wish someone would create an Audible-like service specializing in people with accents you’d actually want to listen to. There are those accents with which one could read the T.G.I. Friday’s menu and hold me in rapt attention. Thanks for the recommendation.
I would think that really depends on genre, too, or even the particular book. Someone reading David McCullough with a flat midwestern accent would be fine. Hillbilly Elegy with a slight (not too thick) Appalachian twang, great. Etc.