Louisiana Books

My husband got Steve Burgoyne the job in Louisiana.My husband came home after 3 months for a routine winter job and 2 years later we still don`t have a large sum of money from the person that hired him. I do not know how Steve could put up with the deprivation so long. Even with the loss of the money, I am still glad my husband came home when he did.
We, unlike the poor Hurricane Katrina victims, have a roof over our head and self earned food on the table, and our pride in doing what we thought would help others.

Being an avid news watcher, I had seen all the reports on Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. What we were shown on television lacks validity after reading the book that Mr. Harris wrote using the diary and interview of the truck driver Stephen Burgoyne. This man was there and his diary reveals the ineptitude of our government to respond to a crisis here in the United States.
The book, Raping Louisiana; A Diary of Deceit should be required reading for all government personnel so that they may learn from their mistakes.
Mr. Burgoyne shows us through his diary what actually was done in the relief effort and clarifies why it has taken so long for the clean up effort. No wonder it isn't done yet and it will be years before it is. How scary to think that this could be the response to a disaster where we live.
His story also tells us how it was for him, being away from his family during all types of personal things; death, illness; holidays; anniversaries, etc. Our government owes these people who worked during the clean up more than the pay they received, they are owed a huge thank you for the sacrifices they made when they responded and did what the government wasn't doing.
I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know the true story.

Hurricane Katrina, a disaster of Biblical proportions, is no longer in the news but the devastation of the land and the victimization of the residents of the Gulf Coast continues. Philip Harris's Raping Louisiana - A Diary of Deceit addresses the aftermath of the storm through the eyes of Steve Burgoyne, a middle aged truck driver from upstate New York. The bluntly honest depiction of his yearlong odyssey working in the Katrina cleanup efforts reveals the corruption, the despair, and the government waste in detailed diary entries.
Burgoyne's descriptions, presented with the minutia of a daily journal, illustrate the three types of people who came to the Gulf in the aftermath of the storm: crooks, victims trying to survive, and the people who came because they genuinely care. Burgoyne met plenty of all, the faceless contractors came down to make a quick fortune off the government and the unfortunate; the victims as they wandered the streets of the Dead Zone in the lower ninth ward; and the men moving debris and clearing the streets of rubble. Steve and his crew worked and lived in conditions little better than those of a third world country. They initially slept in travel trailers parked in horse pastures with no potable water or sewage facilities. But even in those conditions, the men stayed on working to make the land clear so the previous inhabitants of the Gulf Coast could return to their land. Every truck load carried away from previously populated area impacted the men who worked there. "It was stressful...you're picking up pieces of somebody's life." Throughout, it is evident that Burgoyne's family was his support network while he toiled in the land of the hopeless.
On the Gulf, with no affordable places to live, there is no working class to run the shops and businesses in the service industries. FEMA has made a feeble attempt to provide housing for those living in shelters surrounded by hopelessness. Those that stayed and now make their homes there are the disabled, the elderly, and the unskilled labor. They now sit in their FEMA provided formaldehyde-laced cages destitute and deeply depressed. The rebuilding of the city has completely ignored this disenfranchised population, government supplemented affordable housing is not a priority in the re-building boom. New Orleans is currently the murder capital of the world. Depression, suicide, and anxiety are rampant. The devastation of the storm still takes victims in its path through drugs and alcohol abuse. The imported workers and those refugees who remained self-medicate as they live side by side in a ravaged land.
Ignored, forgotten, and abandoned the Gulf Coast is still a hotbed of contention and corruption. Raping Louisiana is a good read for raising America's social consciousness. We can provide millions of dollars to tsunami stricken countries, we can fund a war to fight terrorism, and we can forgive billions of dollars of foreign debt but we have written off our own citizens. Raping Louisiana should be a wakeup call to those who have forgotten Katrina and her victims. Is anybody listening?

I love travel books. I especially love travel books about America. What I love about this book is how an immigrant poet from New Orleans learns to drive so he can see America as a driver. Even though the book was written in the 1990s, it could now be considered a history book. When you read it, you can tell your kids about the good ole days when cars were smaller than starter homes and a tank of gas cost less than a mortgage payment. For more cool, short book recommendations, visit The Lazy Readers' Book Club at [...].

Roumanian-born poet and brand-new driver Andrei Codrescu hops in a mint red '68 Cadillac and journeys with film crew from Ellis Island to the Golden Gate, making stops in a ravaged and abandoned Detroit, a moving and shaking Chicago, the New Age and Survivalist supermarkets of the southwest, the neon kitsch of Vegas, and finally the odd peace and stability of San Francisco, where Codrescu notes, "From here on out there is nothing but ocean. You can't run any farther. You must turn around to face yourself." The book's main strength is that Codrescu never condescends to his subjects, remaining true to his observation that "what keeps us together is precisely the awed awareness of our differences...."

Towards the end of the book, Codrescu interviews City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti (an interview which didn't make it into the film documentary, by the way) who compares Henry Miller's and Kerouac's cross-country roadtrip accounts, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare and On the Road, respectively: "...Miller was more focused on the reality of America whereas Kerouac was off in his Catholic consciousness more. When you read On the Road cosely, you see he really wasn't observing the reality in front of him." Other than occasional nostalgic flashbacks to the '60s, Codrescu seems to be genuinely engaged and surprised by what he finds at the well-lit fringes of American society at the end of the 20th century.

If you read Tom Robbins' latest novel closely you'll recognize Codrescu as a faculty member of Timbuktu U. In reality he's on the faculty of LSU. No Shaq in stature, Codrescu came to America in the 60's from the home of Dracula. He didn't learn to drive. Not until over two decades later. Then he hooked up with a camera crew; got his driver's lisence, and toured the same route he originally traveled upon coming to America. (No reference to Eddie Murphy's ugly movie.) Codrescu handles the English language with word play and humor. If you were alive in the Sixties, he takes you there. If you weren't, experience all of the places over again, in the present. Experience the riot torn Detroit twenty years later. Transcend in New Mexico. Sip Coffee in New Orleans. But most of all marvel at the prose that has made Codrescu a regular on NPR.

This map book is a very handy tool for anyone wanting to travel on the lesser known roads in Louisiana. It is broken down into smaller grids, and shows all types of roads, dirt, gravel, paved, etc. I highly recommend it.

This book is a necessary tool for researchers of local or family history. The scale is 1"=25 miles so you get incredible details of small roads, cemeteries and other structures. Names of small communities and physical features are listed. The areas are easy to locate by checking a map of the state as a whole (located in two places in the book). And the book is a convenient size to throw in the car for an adventurous road trip (the pages are glossy paper and easy to clean). I find I frequently give "The Roads of Louisiana" as a gift to friends who like to explore the back roads as much as I do.

Too many roads and not enough time and money. But you'll have a blast trying to decided where to go next. I love old cemeteries, roads and places of mystery. This book is invaluable to those who wish to seek just that. Louisiana is so full of these places, you are sure to keep busy for years.
I lived in South Louisiana for a bit and my weekends were full of country rides. I only wish I would have had this book at the time.
There is topography included, which is helpful to those who search for archeaological sites, or homesites, and helpful tourist information such as state parks, plantations and waterways boat launching sites, to name a few.
Even if you don't travel much, it's a very interesting book to just read. Especially if you're fascinated by maps.

A great deal too, if you've priced individual topos lately... (but not to mislead you Quads do have greater detail when it comes to contour of the land.)

So if you love adventure and need a reference guide to stay on the path of adventure, this book is a MUST have.

Silt has rendered a wonderous, pale beauty to the interior carnage of New Orlean's homes. Polidoris's project, a subsequentc 'invasion' of these domains, places on public record their devastation. It's a case of supreme technical skill, enshrining an ephemeral disaster. The denizens have hastily evacuated, leaving Polidori to rut in the trough of the city's ruin. Here, in one haunting page after another, the tidal muds that have rudely piled cars beneath houses in tragically asymmetrical congress, are made warm and close. It's relentless. You can almost handle the poignant detritus. We're led first through the haunting streets of uprooted poles, trees and weathereboards, of twisted metal. Then the rooms, the hearts and minds of individual suffering. Not snap-happy journalistic sensationalism, but hypnotically constructed images whose frozen testimonies have more permanence than the rented edifices they record. Polidori knows where to stand amidst the wreckage: his camera an unerring eye delving near and distantly with disturbing clarity. It is the very silence that entrances with singular eloquence and gravity. The wind and tide have subsided, but the havock endures in sulphurous washes and surreal configuration which 1000 installation artists would greet as a great funereal statement that transcends collective imagination. In a word, awesome, the currency of the Sublime. Polidori has wrested art from tragedy. Any of its 200 plus large format pages can be poured over for aesthetic reward, the more to dwell on vagabond Nature. Brilliant!

"After the Flood", the latest book by French Canadian Photographer, Robert Polidori, about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is also his largest and most powerful. It is as if his books on Havana and Chernobyl were mere foretastes to this exceptional and moving work, and certainly anyone who has seen these two books came away with a feeling of the power and storytelling that Polidori's images can convey. Polidori has the gift of the detailed eye that can simultaneously give the viewer images of beauty and revulsion in objects and textures. These alone tell the stories. There are no images of people necessary. It is as if he is capturing the tracks and shadows that humanity has left behind. He was able to show this in the urban decay of Havana and of the horrors of the rapid evacuation and subsequent reclamation of nature in Chernobyl. In "After the Flood", he presents us with an almost encyclopedic presentation of the aftermath of the hurricane, flooding, wind, water and mud damage showing the fragility of our cities and the power of nature.

The book contains at least 400 images, which have been carefully arranged. The first images show parts of the city still under water and the receding water. The next group shows the destruction caused by water inside the houses. Furniture has been picked up by the flood and re-arranged and we see the effects of water on different materials and soon notice the tell-tale brown lines on the walls, sometimes over six feet high, showing the high water mark. Succeeding groups of images show the effects of mud, water and wind on buildings and cars that have been tossed around at random like toys. Sometimes cars rest against houses in bizarre angles and sometimes the houses are laying on top of the cars. Several pages show smaller images of streets where every house was damaged and abandoned. The last set of images shows the clean up. Mounds of refuse in front of houses, temporary trailers, houses being cleaned and repaired. The effect is very powerful as we see how the lives of hundreds of thousands were affected and how many must have lost everything.

The book can only give a taste of the incredible detail the images contain. In a recent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art they could be seen as the original prints, each at about 40" by 54". They were taken with a large camera and according to Polidori with no lighting, as there was no electricity available at the time the shots were taken and lighting would have been to cumbersome in cramped and sometimes dangerous conditions. Only time exposures could show the incredible detail, which Polidori refers to as the "process of revelation". He call his work "a constant learning process", and anyone who looks at this book will not only learn, but will also ask questions as to how a disaster of this magnitude was possible, and to our place on this earth and our future here.

Review by Walter O. Koenig

I purchased this book for my husband for Christmas. He grew up in the 9th Ward. This book of pictures captures the essence of the damage in the New Orleans area caused by the flood following Hurricane Katrina. The pictures are so real that you can just feel the erriness they capture.They make me think of haunted houses from a movie. But they are real. Real peoples lives and homes.

This book is unlike any other Travel Planning Book. It is descriptive and puts you right in the heart of the atmosphere! I picked this up on a whim with my traditional Frommers Travel Guide. I hardly have used Frommers at all for this upcoming trip. This book is all I need!!!! My husband and I have been reading the "itineraries" aloud to each other in anticipation of our trip. That way we can pop a post-it flag on the activities that spark our interest and plan out our own custom itinerary a few days before leaving. I love this book and guarantee our weekend trip will be more memorable because of this book!!! If you are planning a trip to New Orleans, buy it - you won't regret it!!!

We are new to the area and too busy to explore without something too reference. This has made exploring our new town very easy and exciting. I recommend this book for people coming to New Orleans for a long weekend.

This book turned a stroke of bad luck on our honeymoon into a honeymoon we will remember. Our original plans were to do a 7-day cruise, but after flying to Miami and getting an hour out to sea, the engine on our ship broke and the whole cruise was cancelled. We flew back home the next day and decided we would drive to New Orleans. We picked this book up that night and it helped us plan an entire new honeymoon at the last minute. We stayed at the Hampton Inn as described in Itinerary 16, which is just a block and a half from the French Quarter. Thursday morning we took the excellent Cemetery and Voodoo walking tour found in Itinerary 6. That afternoon we had our own perfumes and colognes created for us at Bourbon French Parfums (Itinerary 3). Friday we attempted to follow Day Two of Itinerary 16. The Zoo is gorgeous and very romantic, but don't get fooled into taking the timeshare tour that they will offer you at the harbor where you get your zoo\aquarium tickets. Saturday we stayed at the Victoria Inn from Itinerary 27. What a great place! It's beautiful and moderately priced. The Bayou boat tour (also Itinerary 27) was the highlight of the trip. We got to see dolphins swimming right along the boat! That night's dinner at Restaurant Des Familles was very good too. All of these ideas came from this book and helped make our honeymoon a romantic and memorable one. If you ever plan on going to New Orleans, or returning, this is the book to have.

I haven't personally read the book but I do intend to in a couple of weeks. I purchased the book primarily for my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law absolutely loves the book. She recently gave her copy of the book away to an associate. I found this out and purchased another copy for her, as well as, one for myself. I was curious to see what she liked so much about the book. I plan to find out in a couple of weeks.

I will say also that the delivery of this book was very quick. This was a good thing because I wanted to give the book to my mother-in-law the week after.

Recipient of the 2006 Gourmand Award, the "Ruby Slippers Cookbook" is an impressive compilation of Creole and Cajun recipes showcasing the kind of cuisine that made New Orleans famous. But author Amy Cyrex Sins offers even more as she also includes photographs and stories of a post-Katrina chronicle of the people who had to endure the unendurable, then build back up a city that was almost totally destroyed. It should be noted that a portion of the proceeds of the sale of the "Ruby Slippers Cookbook" will be donated to the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. With recipes ranging from Crawfish Boil; Oyster and Artichoke Soup for a Really Large Crowd!; and Sweet Potato Ravioli; to Strawberry and Spinach Salad; Peanut Butter Fudge; and Drago's Grilled Oysters, "Ruby Slippers Cookbook" is an impressive and highly recommended culinary tribute to the spirit and cuisine of the people of Louisiana in general, and New Orleans in particular!

I love, love, love this book!!!! I could not put it down! Not only is it a cookbook, but it's a photograph book, and a story book of Katrina and life after it, as well as wonderful cookbook. The author really did a great job capturing New Orleans and it's love for food and people! I bought 4 books to give as Christmas gifts! Thank you for a wonderful keepsake.

The names and numbers and locations make this a great addition to my Cajun library, which is voluminous.

This excellent reader, part of the Louisiana Life series, is an excellent starting point for anyone wanting to learn more about the struggle and hardship that is the life's history of the Cajuns. Being a Cajun, I have to admit that this reader is rather depressing, but it is essential reading for those of us want to learn about the fabric we are built from.

This book, much like Brasseaux's "Acadian to Cajun," is full of references and statistical information that the reader can digest. Unlike the aforementioned book, Brasseaux does not get dragged down by his use of numbers as much. Either way, both books are brilliant reads, and I suggest that you read "Scattered to the Wind" first and then follow it up with "Acadian to Cajun." Finally, I recommend "The Cajuns: Americanization of a People," by Shane K. Bernard in order to get a solid foundation of the Cajun from the late 1700's all the way up to modern times.

There are many more books in the Louisiana Life Series, and I've already ordered two more of them. I hope that they all meet the standard set by Brasseaux's "Scattered to the Wind."

In this excellent overview of the dispersion of the Acadians from the Bay of Fundy area across two continents, the author describes some of the indignities and atrocities suffered by the Acadians at the hands of the British.

The Acadians only wanted neutrality, but the British, ever suspicious of the Acadians, and fearful of their superior numbers, demanded an unconditional oath of allegiance. The Acadians stubbornly refused.

This was no mere political struggle for the Acadians; they were fighting for their cultural survival.

All manner of deceit, humiliation and deplorable tactics were used to rid themselves of these willful Acadians.

By 1760, approximately 6,000 Acadians had been sent into exile distributed among the British seaboard colonies,England,the seaboard provinces and throughout the lower thirteen colonies. The conditions on the transports were inhumane, and of course epidemics broke out.

If that wasn't enough, having been preceded by anti-French propaganda for months prior to their arrival, they were unwelcome in most of the ports and the threat of infection worsened the situation. Many were refused sanction altogether.

In the rest of the book, the author describes the reception, the conditions and treatment of the Acadians in the individual states or ports of call into which they were taken.

I brought a copy of this book a few years ago and have enjoyed many hours of quiet contemplation. I am transported to the Vieux Carre in an instant. Layers upon layers of visual details are revealed to you. The secrets of this hidden world are yours to uncover over and over again.

I bought this book some years ago and use it as a vacation-in-an-easychair escape to New Orleans. It is a treasure, written by a New Orleans insider who had access to the most wonderful gardens. I hope that it will be reprinted soon, so that I can buy it and send it to a dear friend I was telling about it.

I was in New Orleans recently and fell in love with the courtyard gardens that were hidden away beyond thick stone and brick walls. You could see these beautiful green, quiet oasis in contrast to the loud and sometimes bawdiness of the streets of the French Quarter, behind wrought iron fences, tucked away, for just a few to see and enjoy. I went to several bookstores in New Orleans, asking if there was a book on courtyard gardens of the French Quarter. I finally found one, The Secret Garden of the Vieux Carre. It was a beautiful book, with photographs that depicted the character of the gardens in a way that words could not. It was large and heavy and I did not have any room in my bags for another purchase. I thought, no problem, when I return home to California, I will find the book or order it. It is out of print! This could be worth a return trip to New Orleans in the very near future. I highly recommended this book.

Review: She walks on Gilded Splinters by Gene Dwyer.

The book is about Marie Laveau, a Voodoo "queen" who devastates the New Orleans community every twenty-five years, committing a series of sensational murders.

It is an intriguing combination of fantasy and violence set against the backdrop of the history and consequences of the slave trade in New Orleans. The author has written a gruesome thriller with moral implications, both a reminder of the inhuman practice of slavery and the cruelty inflicted on an innocent people, and that the results are still with us. Must we answer for the sins of our forefathers? Is compensation due to the descendants of those who were so abused? Can anything wipe out the consequences? Can the past ever be forgiven? Has it been forgiven? Will it ever be forgiven? One need only glance at what hurricane Katrina did to New Orleans and its largely black population to be forcibly reminded that problems connected with race still exist in America

These controversial issues, which may offend many, were not what made me read the book avidly from cover to cover. Whatever is in the mind of the author, an American judge, he has produced an absorbing and exciting story with a lurid historical background. It is not a religious sermon.

In the first pages I was sceptical about the absurd concept of magic, invisible monsters and the living dead, but soon became involved in the STORY, that Marie Laveau, whose tomb may still be visited in New Orleans, is still alive and taking revenge on the descendants of anyone who had taken part in the American slave trade. Voodoo, in a horrible and disgusting fashion, is real.

Once you have got into the book you will find that the author has managed a strong degree of verisimilitude and you find yourself living in the pages of the narrative with real people, in spite of the impossibility of what is being portrayed.

This is an absorbing, fascinating suspense story which will at times disgust, but which will ultimately compel the reader to follow it to the final nail-biting conclusion.

Light relief is supplied by policeman Marvin's dog, Yorick, and his fishing, a real Man's dog.

Although not for the oversensitive, this is a thriller with a difference which is definitely worth reading and which could make a successful horror movie with plenty of scope for special effects.

Although Marie Laveau the person will never be captured, Gene Dwyer has successfully captured her essence in his remarkable book, "She Walks on Gilded Splinters." As we learned during 911, one tragic event can unleash simultaneously the forces of good and evil. "She Walks on Gilded Slinters" recalls events that depict the worst suffering man can inflict on man and thereby unleash forces of revenge that take their toll over generations. You will not forget Marie Laveau. As the author states, "Getting an education makes people so skeptical they don't believe what is right in front of them. . ." If you can suspend your intellectual beliefs for just a moment, you will believe not only in magical, miraculous things, you will also discover the true meaning of immortality.

Gail Cawsey

SHE WALKS ON GILDED SPLINTERS is not so much the story of Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau, as it is an unexpected mystery. Mr. Dwyer artfully blends a combination of blood, gore, sex, mystery and history into a Louisiana gumbo you can smell and taste. You will not want to put this book down as you near the end. It is truly a "page turner."

This book is very good for adhering to the glycemic index while allowing one to enjoy good food. A must for any healthy gourmet!

This sugar free cookbook has terrific information blended with easy to make recipes. Reference material on the glycemic index is the best I've seen. I am cooking more interesting dishes now thanks to this book.

Sugarfree New Orleans has taught me a whole new way to cook! Healthy recipes without sugar are right in line with our new diet! I feel like I have learned the secrets of great New Orleans chefs since we now enjoy New Orleans style cooking at home. The information about the glycemic index is easy to understand and has been very helpful. Recipes are easy to follow. The book even has New Orleans food terms explained. But the best thing about the book is the recipes!! Sweet potato chips is one of my family's favorites. I am cooking more often and enjoying the outcome thanks to this book.