Louisiana Books

On election night, commentators usually forget to provide the context and background explaining why the south votes the way it does, making it "mysterious" to all but the pros.

This book begins by explaining the shift towards the Republican Party in the south in recent years in clear language. As much as was made of Gore's loss in his home state in 2000, this books makes clear that any democrat would likely have lost there.

The first chapter gives a regional overview and each succeeding chapter covers one state, written by a local expert. Highly recommended.

An amazing review of the status of the political situation in the American South in the 1990s. It will appeal to the lay audience, political scientists, and political professionals. In the fine tradition of V.O. Key.

This is the only book I have been able to find on Black Hawk and the Spiritual Churches of New Orleans. The author takes you on a journey into the heart of New Orleans both with text and color photographs. The author really seems to know his stuff. I have enjoyed reading this book several times, each time learning something new. The author gives details of the spiritual church movement in New Orleans and throughout the African community. We read about the incorporation of Black Hawk, a powerful Inidan warrior is venerated and worked for the benefit of all, including usual shrines to the Black Hawk spirit. Highly reccomended!

This book portrays the Indian spirit Black Hawk as known to the Spiritualist Churches in New Orleans. Black Hawk is a 19th century Midwestern Indian warrior especially dear to the heart of African-American spiritual faith in the deep South. Black Hawk's following first blossomed in New Orleans sometime around the 1920s through the work of the spiritualist Leafy Anderson. The book has biographical material about both Black Hawk and Leafy Anderson and includes interesting material about several of the spiritualists who came after her and who still keep the tradition alive. The book tells of the way Black Hawk benefits the lives of those who call on him - "He'll fight your battles." - Jason Berry is a fine, sensitive writer. The photos are great, expecially the one of Big Chief Jolly of the Wild Tchoupitoulas taken at the time of Mardi Gras in 1979.

Fred Chappell has defined himself as a quirky, original voice in American poetry over the years. His Selected Poems is no exception. He has written a prologue to the whole book and one for each section, along with an epilogue for the collection, all of which creates a loose narrative out of nearly thirty years of an astounding poet's career.

I advise any serious reader of poetry and/or southern literature to purchase this book. The poems range from erudite to earthy to witty to just plain silly. Chappell can do it all--from formal verse to experimental free verse--and he does it all masterfully. He certainly deserves his reputation (Bollingen winner, T. S. Eliot Award winner, and NC poet laureate). In fact, I think it's time someone gave him a Pulitzer or National Book Award.

Chappell's Spring Garden collection of poems is made for poets! His hilarious epigrams poke fun at himself and others. Among amazingly tender and beautifully serene poems include "Abandoned Schoolhouse at Long Branch" and "Humility." He shows his poetic genius with "Narcissus and Echo." Chappell is truly one of the geniuses of modern poetry. Own this book! It already is a classic.

"Steamboat Gothic" is a term for the style of architecture ". . . which was inspired by the floating palaces that plied the Mississippi River during its Golden Age." From the book's forward by the author. Though the tale of a riverman and his family, there is little actual river in the book. There is, however, lots of accurate "period" in the book. As you would expect from F.P.K., it is a good read.

The steamboat gambler got rich and bought a mansion in the style of steamboat gothic to take his lady-bride to live in and to keep his past hidden from her. Then he passes a great heritage and tradition on to his "grandson", Larry. Keyes at her usual top form, in story, grammar, research and form.

Excellent guide to Cajun food and French/Cajun history. A must read for any food history inthusiast.

Louisiana Food. Louisiana History. Louisiana Culture. All three of these alluring topics are blended and cooked-down to a flavorful étouffée in Stir the Pot. The authors themselves - a chef, a historian, and a folklorist - form the perfect mixture to create this heart-warming collection of historical accounts, stories, techniques, and economic to religious influences that have driven the evolution of Cajun cooking for over two centuries.

But don't just take my word for it. The back cover of the book boasts commendations from renowned historians and authors John Mack Faragher and Jay Gitlin, and from Comander's Palace owner Ella Brennan. Emeril Lagasse, the star chef of the Food Network, states "I'm happy to see the real story of the evolution of Cajun cuisine finally put in print. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the subject, this book will be a great reference." And I believe that everyone, familiar or not, will enjoy this book throughout.

As we traveled along Interstate 10 between New Orleans and "Red Baton," I mused about the girders which held the highway up out of the bayous. What must travel or life in general have been like in that part of Louisianna a century or so ago.

George Washington Cable first collected these seven stories about Louisianna and published them in 1888. He calls them true stories. They are stories from times before his own from 1782 to after the Civil War. At the same time these stories are strange to Cable because life had changed so much in Louisianna between the time that the stories occurred and his own time.

The stories start with the story of Louise who came to Louisianna and almost became the dinner of a local chief. This tragic tale is quickly followed by the "bright and happy" story of Francoise and Suzanne who travel through the "wilds" of Atchafalaya. Alix's story is next. She was once introduced to Marie Antoinette. Then the French Revolution came and Alix lost her first husband. She will be a character that I long admire but I ask you to read the story to see why. Salome Muller was a German who lost most of her family enroute to Louisianna. (Some 1200 of the 1800 who attempted to make that trip never arrived.) Salome became a slave. Yet some 20 years or so later her family took her case to the State Supreme Court to free her. The
"haunted house" is the house of Madame Lalaurie who chose to save her possessions rather than her slaves when a fire burned her house. The story of Attalie Brouillard reminds me of the con men of the movie "The Sting" with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. The last story is a diary of a Union woman who lived in the South during the Civil War. To these I would like to add the story of George W Cable who begins his book by telling his readers how he got these other seven stories.

These are true stories from people who lived in Creole Louisianna, a time strange to us now.

Seven unusual, true stories set in Louisiana comprise the reissue of George Washington Cable's STRANGE TRUE STORIES OF LOUISIANA. First published in 1888, these stories are a gold mine of cultural lore and historical facts. As interesting as the stories themselves are the accounts of how Cable acquired them.

"The Young Aunt with White Hair" is set in Spanish occupied Louisiana in 1782 and describes the horrors experienced by a young woman on the long journey to New Orleans from Germany: robbed by sailors on the ship; an Indian attack near the mouth of the Mississippi River, during which her husband and baby are brutally murdered; being held captive by Indians and told she was to be the chief's dinner. Her ordeal was so great that her hair turned snow white in a matter of hours, and she never recovered from the experience.

Humor and suspense make "The Two Sisters" just plain fun to read. Two teenage girls- one a tomboy and one a demure, sweet lady- undertake a dangerous trek across the Atchafalaya swamp to North Louisiana in 1795. It's not only a good story, but the details of clothing, places and people are priceless. "Plaquemine was composed of a church, two stores, as many drinking-shops, and about fifty cabins, one of which was the courthouse. Here lived a multitude of Catalans, Acadians, Negros and Indians. ..It was at Plaquemine that we bade adieu to the old Mississippi.."

The story if "Alix de Morainville" reads like a fairy tale: the birth-deformed baby farmed out to a peasant family; the arranged marriage that turns out to be a love match; the convent stay; the marriage of dear friend Madelaine to Count Louis de la Houssaye and the couple's departure for the Louisiana colony; presentation to Queen Marie Antoinette; Aleix's grand wedding at Notre Dame Cathedral; the onset of the French Revolution; widowhood; rescue; and flight first to England and then to Louisiana.

The other stories are "Salome Muller, The White Slave," "The Haunted House in Royal Street," "Attalie Brouillard," and "War Diary of a Union Woman in the South."

I thoroughly enjoyed Follet's book. It is well researched, well written and shows how the desire for economic success by the Lousiana planter class drove the ideology and practice of slavery on the sugar plantation. Follet also shows us how slaves attempted to derive economic and personal independence within the contstraints of the plantation economy and racism. The Lousiana sugar economy differed from other sugar economies in the Caribbean and Follet shows it in its very particular context while touching on broader themes in the antebellum South and U.S. history as a whole. My only regret is the organization of the work, which wasn't clearly outlined and seemed to flow from one topic to another without real warning or structure, though with logic. But other than that, I found it thoroughly instructive, thoughtful, and objective.

"The Sugar Masters: Planters And Slaves In Louisiana's Cane World, 1820-1860" by Richard Follett (American History Instructor, University of Sussex, England) is an analytical history of the employment of slaves in the sugar cane industry as practiced in Louisiana during the early 19th century. The focus is on labor management practices used to control and exploit a slave-oriented labor system within the contemporary context of capitalism, hierarch, paternalism, and ethics. A seminal contribution to pre-emancipation Louisiana, "The Sugar Masters" is a model of scholarship in terms of the underlying empirical research, as a demographic study, and in expanded our understanding of the social and cultural history of slavery, agricultural, and cultural practices of the era. A very highly recommended addition to academic library collections, "The Sugar Masters" is especially recommended reading for students in the disciplines of Black History, American History, Louisiana History, and American Economic History.

If you haven't read any of Susan Ludvigson's earlier books of poetry, this would make a great introduction to a wizard of words whose work moves from the mundane to the universal. Whether writing of sex and marriage, light and flight, or the terrors of modern life, Ludvigson is supple, smart and sly.

"The body is a boat gliding / down the river whose fragrance / spins us to the shady places / under apple trees / and into bedrooms" It is the subtle influences--fragrance, music, color, the sound of snow falling, and the gradations of shadow and light--that move us, body, mind, and soul, through Ludvigson's poetry and closer to ourselves: "More and more I see / how everything goes together / There is such grace in this reconciliation." These poems consider the usual fare, places and people, family, friends, and lovers, but are blessed with a kind of grace. For the author, grace is almost accidental,"--like geometry, / where right answers come through paths / we can never retrace," and the reader ends up, after daring leaps and odd connections, back where he or she began. This volume is a gift for those of us who have come to Ludvigson's poetry late, selecting work from six previous collections and throwing in 20 new pieces. Highly recommended.

4-year-old grandbaby loved this book! She adores possums and this book is full of them. It takes a long time to read because she counts all the possum brothers and sisters and studies all the other living things that are part of this lovely story. We have read this book over and over and each time it's like a visit to the bayou. The art is rich with detail. Every time we read it we see something new. She enjoys the ending where the little Tah-Tye discovers his own possum power!

At the nature center, I use this book as part of my nature education program for preschool through 1st grade children. Following the reading, the children "play opossum". We then hike a short trail where the children look for the items that the little opossum found on his walk through the swamp. The story holds the children spellbound. And, they remember all of the items and animals mentioned in the story. The illustrations are simple and easily seen by a large group. Many of the teachers have asked where they can purchase this book, but the children's reaction really speaks for itself!

This book is written as though the primitive artist Clementine Hunter is telling her story. It sounds just so! And the illustrative examples of Clementine's artwork are fitting and wonderful to see.

As a teacher of k-12 art I value this resource. Hunter's life is facinating and her story is important for kids to hear. The author writes in Hunter's voice, creating an intimate conversation. Other older sources I've found about this artist's life are presented in way that could be percieved as patronizing. Lyons presents racial issues in a direct way I really appreciated and helped me when working with students. Hunter's paintings express her life - using images with deeper interpretations than just quaint naive pictures. Her personal dignity and creative spirit are an inspiration to us all. Lyons includes a good balance of historic photos and reproduced artwork. I recomend also checking out other books by Lyons focusing on non-mainstream American artists.