R. Scott Brunner

I finished this last week, having started it while I was still in Oregon and just a few days away from moving back home to Arkansas. It was just the right kind of thing to be reading as the book is a series of short story anecdotes about life in the South and life in general. I don't usually enjoy these kinds of collections but I needed something that didn't require a long attention span and memory so it was perfect.

The book is very 90s-centric with commentary on everything from "the latest show more Erma Bombeck column", to Day-Timers, to Bob Dole and Bill Clinton---with several other now-elderly politicians thrown in.

Fun look at life in the South. show less

A collection of essays in homage to the author's boyhood South, among other topics. They really read more like columns, but never mind. The essays are warm, nostalgic, occasionally profound, occasionally funny. Call it comfort food; I finished the book with a nice fuzzy feeling about folks and the world. It's not particularly memorable or moving, but it's a good book that fills a need in a world that could always be a little nicer.

Most of these essays were too short. I felt like the author only touched the surface of what being Southern is all about.

This book of Southern-flavored essays was cute but too slight to draw this Yankee in.