Ava's Man
Author: Rick Bragg
With the same emotional generosity and effortlessly compelling storytelling that made All Over But the Shoutin’ a national bestseller, Rick Bragg continues his personal history of the Deep South. This time he’s writing about his grandfather Charlie Bundrum, a man who died before Bragg was born but left an indelible imprint on the people who loved him. Drawing on their memories, Bragg reconstructs the life of an unlettered roofer who kept food on his family’s table through the worst of the Great Depression; a moonshiner who drank exactly one pint for every gallon he sold; an unregenerate brawler, who could sit for hours with a baby in the crook of his arm.
In telling Charlie’s story, Bragg conjures up the backwoods hamlets of Georgia and Alabama in the years when the roads were still dirt and real men never cussed in front of ladies. A masterly family chronicle and a human portrait so vivid you can smell the cornbread and whiskey, Ava’s Man is unforgettable.
Publishers Weekly
In less capable hands, this biography could have been mawkish and mundane. Instead, Bragg's telling of his maternal grandfather's life is eloquent and touching, and his spare prose is alive with fresh metaphors and memorable sentences. Bragg never knew Charlie Bundrum, who died prematurely at age 51 in 1958; the story of this proud, flawed, loving and much-loved hero of Depression-era Appalachia is derived from family and community oral history. Interestingly, this book emerged because readers of Bragg's bestselling book about his mother, Ava (All Over but the Shoutin'), wanted to understand the force that drove her to be such a strong figure. Few actors could have read this work as well as the author has. Bragg's Appalachian accent, slightly polished by Northern living, adds authenticity to the fine, funny and painful anecdotes that made up his grandfather's life and to the feelings each story encompasses. His smooth reading enhances the rhythms and sounds of his prose, rendering with genuine sincerity his deep admiration for his people and for the vanishing culture they represent. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Nancy Zachary - VOYA
When Bragg first turned his considerable journalistic talent to his family, he provided an unforgettable portrayal of the rural South in All Over but the Shoutin' (Pantheon, 1997). Here Bragg focuses on the life of his maternal grandfather, Charlie Bundrum, who died just one year before the author was born. Readers return to the Deep South during the years of the Great Depression and the legend of what it took to keep family together. Moving his family from place to place to find work, food, and shelter, Charlie was most proud of being a daddy. A roofer by trade, Charlie played and sang to a white-hot banjo, was no stranger to whiskey, and fought for what he felt was right. He is a backwoods tall-tale character at the very least. Bragg's wondrous style is filled with emotion and affection for his family members, the land they inhabited, and the stories they recalled. Although his memoir is recommended to all who enjoyed Bragg's first journey into his family's history, this volume reaches deeper into the heart of southern folk and might be used in cultural studies assignments. What made Charlie Bundrum act is a piece of Americana that Bragg highlights for all readers. Junior and senior high schoolers would benefit from reading this marvelous wit and social history. One might hope that Hollywood finds Bragg also. Photos. VOYA CODES: 4Q 3P J S A/YA (Better than most, marred only by occasional lapses; Will appeal with pushing; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult and Young Adult). 2001, Knopf, 259p,
Library Journal
After the publication of Bragg's best-selling memoir All Over but the Shoutin', readers accused the author of "leaving out the good part." They wanted to know where he believed his mother's "heart and backbone came from, and where she inherited the strength and character to raise three boys alone." They also felt he had "short-shrifted" Charlie and Ava Bundrum, his mother's parents. Bragg's grandfather died before he was born, and his extended family, filled with fine storytellers, were conspicuously silent about his life. Upon questioning, he discovered that talking about his grandfather's life led to talking about his death and the grief all of his children still felt 42 years after he "was preached into the sky." On the day of Charlie's funeral, cars lined the blacktop for more than a mile. Deciding "a man like that deserved a book," Bragg interviewed family members and neighbors to tell his grandfather's story. As with his previous book, Bragg writes about poor people of the South with dignity and without condescension. The author reads with humor, affection, and pride; this is a splendid listening experience. Pam Kingsbury, Alabama Humanities Fdn., Florence Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The story of a man who could charm a bird off a wire, beat the tar out of a threat, dandle a baby, tend a still, and smile—no, live—right through the meanest poverty the South could throw at him, from New York Times reporter and Pulitzer-winner Bragg (All Over But the Shoutin'). Bragg's grandfather, Charlie Bundrum, died a year before Bragg was born, so the author "built him up from dirt level, using half-forgotten sayings, half-remembered stories, and a few yellowed, brittle, black-and-white photographs." Speaking in a lovely southern voice out of northern Georgia and Alabama, with a juke in its bones and metaphors to die for, Bragg brings not just Charlie but an entire time and place to life. Charlie was the son of another piece of work, a man who "largely disregarded any laws or influence outside his own will, and some people did not like to look him dead in the eye because it made them feel weak." No stranger to a dust-up himself, Charlie would take the law down a notch if it was too mettlesome, but he had a softer side—one that would play a white-hot banjo, buck-dance under the stars (and under the influence of his own good white whisky, which made him sing rather than cuss), and offer a helping hand whenever the need arose. Most important of Charlie's virtues, from the author's point of view, was the fact that "if he ever was good at one thing on this earth, it was being a daddy." Searching for work (sometimes, just for food), he'd move his family about the wild and dangerous South, a landscape of ridges and hollows and deep woods, ramshackle houses, muddy rivers, water moccasins, primeval catfish (which he caught from a boat made of two car hoods weldedtogether)—but he knew how to make his family feel secure and loved. A book that flashes with affection and respect for Charlie and the vanishing culture he represents, one we will be immensely the poorer for losing.
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Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts into Sales
Author: Bob Burg
The definitivve guide to turning casual contacts into solid sales opportunities
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Table of Contents:
| Preface | |
| Acknowledgments | |
| 1 | Networking: What It Is and What It Does for You! | 1 |
| 2 | Questions Are the Successful Networker's Most Valuable Ammunition | 9 |
| 3 | How to Work Any Crowd | 19 |
| 4 | Profitable Follow-up Techniques | 27 |
| 5 | Training the People Who Network for You | 41 |
| 6 | Six Essential Rules of Networking Etiquette | 51 |
| 7 | Prospecting for Fun and Profit | 61 |
| 8 | Begin Your Own Profitable Networking Group | 85 |
| 9 | Position Yourself as the Expert (and Only Logical Resource) in Your Field | 97 |
| 10 | Customer Service: The Networker's Best Friend | 113 |
| 11 | Cross-Promotions: An Interview with Jeff Slutsky | 121 |
| 12 | Home-based Businesses: Networking for Today's Entrepreneur | 133 |
| 13 | Network Marketing...The Last Bastion of Free Enterprise: (And Definitely Not a Pyramid) | 157 |
| 14 | The Mail Order/Direct Marketing Business: Money in Your Mailbox | 181 |
| 15 | Inter-Net-Working: Or - Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday (Internet) Contacts into Sales | 193 |
| 16 | The Foundation of Effective Communication | 225 |
| 17 | Networking: Begin Now | 237 |
| Resource Guide | 241 |
| Index | 251 |
