Books like The Most They Ever Had by Rick Bragg

Rick Bragg’s memoir traces his journey from a poverty‑ridden childhood in northeastern Alabama to becoming a Pulitzer Prize‑winning New York Times reporter, while honoring the resilience of his family amid harsh rural conditions.

Rick Bragg shares the story of becoming a stepfather to a ten‑year‑old boy from Alabama, reflecting on his own upbringing, family heritage, and the challenges of new fatherhood.

Ella May Wiggins, a working mother in early twentieth‑century North Carolina, joins a textile mill labor union to support her family, sparking a profound personal and community struggle that echoes the forgotten history of the early American labor movement.

Investigative journalist Phoebe Eaton separates man from myth, journeying past cartel checkpoints up to El Chapo’s remote hometown hideout in the Sierra Madre. She meets Chapo's family and reveals the surprising telenovela details of his childhood, discovering exactly how this third-grade dropout, Mexico’s most controversial narcotrafficker, rappelled his way from the rock pile that is La Tuna, Sinaloa, onto Forbes magazine's big-time billionaire list, governing a $14-billion empire even as he was on the lam, living in simple pine shacks with plastic folding chairs where the phone service went down if it was raining. She discovers the Pentecostal faith his mother (and he) credit with keeping him alive all these years and helping him escape jail and the authorities numerous times, the gift his mother and sisters (and perhaps even he) have of speaking in tongues. Including many never-seen-before color pictures from Chapo's haunts in La Tuna in Badiraguato, the surprising seat of his empire, and also rare material from his 12-week Brooklyn court trial where he was convicted on ten felony counts before shipping off to a life term in Colorado's Supermax prison.