From the Publisher
"There are only a few American autobiographies of surpassing greatness....Now there is another one, Nate Shaw's." — The New York Times
"Extraordinarily rich and compelling...possesses the same luminous power we associate with Faulkner...the same marvelous idiom, the same wry, sardonic humor...[it] will stun the listener-reader, hold him in its grip, and never really quite let go of him? — Washington Post
"Eloquent and revelatory. When, finally, this big book is put down, one feels exhilarated. This is an anthem to human endurance." — Studs Terkel, New Republic
Baltimore Sun
“Awesome and powerful . . . A living history of nearly a century of cataclysmic change in the life of the Southerner, both black and white . . . Nate Shaw spans our history from slavery to Selma, and he can evoke each age with an accuracy and poignancy so pure that we stand amazed.
Chicago Tribune Book World - Alfred C. Ames
“Tremendous . . . a testimony of human nobility . . . the record of a heroic man with a phenomenal memory and a life experience of a kind of seldom set down in print. . . . a person of extraordinary stature, industrious, brave, prudent, and magnanimous. . . . One emerges from these hundred of pages wiser, sadder, and better because of them. A unique triumph!
Harvard Educational Review - Randall Jarrell
“A triumph of ideas and historical content as well of expression and style.
Time - Paul Grey
“Astonishing . . . Nate Shaw was a formidable bearer of memories. . . . Miraculously, this man’s wrenching tale sings of life’s pleasures: honest work, the rhythm of the seasons, the love of relatives and friends, the stubborn persistence of hope when it should have vanished . . . All God’s Dangers is most valuable for its picture of pure courage.
Christian Science Monitor - H.W. Bragdon
“The authentic voice of a warm, brave, and decent individual. . . . A pleasure to read. . . . Shaw’s observations on the life and people around him, clothed in wonderfully expressive language, are fresh and clear.
New Republic - Studs Terkel
“Eloquent and revelatory. . . . This is an anthem to human endurance.
Washington Post Book World - Robert Coles
“Extraordinarily rich and compelling . . . possesses the same luminous power we associate with Faulkner.
New York Times
“There are only a few American autobiographies of surpassing greatness. . . . Now there is another one, Nate Shaw’s.
New York Times - Dwight Garner
“Somewhere along the line, people stopped talking about it. Friends of mine who talk about nothing except Southern literature have barely heard of the book. I pounced on it after I discovered that Richard Howorth, the well-read owner of Square Books, the independent bookstore in Oxford, Miss., utters its title aloud every time a customer asks the question, 'What one book would you say best explains the South?' I wish I could say that, this early spring, I read All God’s Dangers in one sitting. It’s not that kind of book. It’s a meandering thing; its pleasures are intense but cumulative. This book rolls. But it is superb—both serious history and a serious pleasure, a story that reads as if Huddie Ledbetter spoke it while W. E. B. Du Bois took dictation. That it’s been largely forgotten is bad for it, but worse for us. . . . All God’s Dangers . . . deserves a place in the front rank of American autobiographies. There are many reasons, in 2014, to attend to Ned Cobb’s [Nate Shaw’s] story.
