Tuesday, May 10, 2022

discovering Rick Bragg, finally

 I had to read a biography of someone living, for my reading challenge. I kept this in the back of my mind for some time - it would mostly likely be somebody I admire, or at least find interesting. But no one name occurred to me. 

I decided to go through the biography section at work, until I remembered that we don't have it anymore; they are all interfiled throughout the non-fiction. So I wandered over to the new books to have a look. 

Over the years, when Rick Bragg's name passed by, I would always feel a pull, and wonder about his writing. Never did anything about it. So I'm looking through the new non-fiction and I see a small book with a dog on the cover. The Speckled Beauty. It's about a beloved dog of his (no, the dog doesn't die at the end.) So, I said to myself, you've always wanted to read something of his, and this looks like a biography - of a dog, but so what? I read it. It was a beautiful story. If you're a dog lover, or an animal lover, you may want to give it a try. Rick Bragg is a poet.

So now, I've got something of his called Where I Come From: Stories from the Deep South. I expect to enjoy it, because of his beautiful story-telling ability. 

"The stories in this collection are of the South's gentler, easier nature. It is a litany of great talkers, blue-green waters, deep casseroles, kitchen sink permanents, lying fishermen, haunted mansions, and dogs that never die, things that make this place more than a dotted line on a map or a long-ago failed rebellion, even if only in some cold-weather dream."

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