In Going Our Way, Becky Perry Brown offers an intimate look at her life up to today. The wife of country music legend Jim Ed Brown, brings the reader along on a journey thorough the heyday of Nashville’s golden age and writes with such observant insights that you’d swear you are really there too.

To describe her as the wife of Jim Ed Brown is just cultural shorthand, however. It is true that their love was central and strong, and her role as a loving mother was fundamental to her identity, but she tells the story of being so much besides; she also modeled, worked as a professional makeup artist, painted, danced, taught dance, and formed a dance studio and troupe. It is clear that Becky Brown could—and likely did—everything she ever set out to do.

The book (written with collaborator Roxane Atwood) is full of memories and photographs that give a compelling and thorough impression of a life lived fully. Clearly, Becky Brown has the gift of making life’s moments count—even those that some might wrongly consider the least significant. She has a gift for bring the emotional life of a moment to the page.Going Our Way tells the story of her past so clearly that often it is through the simplest description, the most uncluttered prose, that profundity is conveyed. A life lived in truth needs nothing more that this.

Going Our Way is a highly engaging read that should interest anyone who longs to have lived during the glorious time when Nashville was growing up, and country music was still a family of artists who shared their faith and support in many ways with each other. There are plenty of tales throughut that only a true insider could include. I found myself breezing through chapters—sometimes laughing, once or twice teary-eyed, always intrigued—feeling as if I was simply spending time observing the life that Becky Brown lived.

So satisfying, and definitely more worthy of the written record than most celebrity bios. Do yourself a favor: put on Jim Ed Brown’s ‘Greatest Hits,’ pop a top, and enjoy the first inspiring summer read.