Louisiana Books

Sit here and hope trying to cope my friend died it was suicide i said he wouldn't but i knew i couldnt stop him it's his life ended with the cut of a knife i dont no what he resolved but i hope his problem is solved.

It's impossible to do justice to Dave Smith's "The Wick of Memory" in a brief review. In this book he writes as a young boy, a young man, a lover, husband, and father, a poet, and finally as one beginning to experience the deteriorations of aging. But all his poems are firmly grounded in specifics, and contain many startlingly apt similes. Some examples, recalled at random: a bird's eye in the rain "serene as a man ... bent at a radar screen," the sudden stillness as the eye of a hurricane passes over "like a lock with no key," and "can't breathe hardly better than stones made neon in deep space." These jewels, and many, many others, are embedded in poems that explore situations deeply, in concentrated, precise but accessible language. There are no wasted words in these poems.

There is humor in this book, sometimes laugh-out-loud, see "Boys in the Square in Bologna," more often wry or sharp, as in "A Lay of Summer" and "The Mourners' Line." There is pathos ("Floaters"), and perhaps he skirts the fine line between sentiment and sentimentality ("Red Dog") on occasion, but everywhere there is rich, rhythmic, pleasure-giving language. I most highly recommend this book.

Not only should everyone in Louisiana read this book, but everyone in the country should!

This is an anthology with a strange title, inscrutable cover, and some of the best stories I've read. Some oldies but goodies (i.e., "The Convict") and many new-to-me stories. Some are surprisingly dark, but of course Louisiana is the land of mojo, Spanish-moss draped trees along black bayous . . . Well worth the read. These are stories to be read and read over again.

I echo the previous reviewer - this book is great for Louisiana, adjoining areas of Texas and probably other adjoining state to Louisiana. The only complaint I have is that there aren't quite enough flowers for it to be as comprehensive as I wish it were. It would be great if the book were published again with updated photographs - due to film and the technology of the times in which it was published, the images could be better - but they are still very good and it's an excellent reference for this area of the country. If you live in Louisiana particularly or in adjoining states, this is probably a book you want to have.

This is a great field guide to wildflowers in Louisiana. The photographs enable the reader to immediately identify the plant that they are trying to discover. I have owned my copy for 30 years and I still use it. Grab a copy if you can find one. I'm never parting with mine!

I originally bought this book for a child who was in the St.Louis Muny Opera because the Muny is on the site of the 1904 World's Fair. I also purchased one later for my son, who will be a history teacher. I read the book myself and was so amazed that something as wonderful as this fair is little known, especially for those of us who grew up in the area. There are details in this book, as well as pictures, that would interest many. Did you know that the Ferris Wheel actually had cars big enough to hold 60 people and weddings often took place on the Ferris Wheel?!? That is only one of the many interesting things you will read about in this book.

This book is based on a collection of about 150 pictures of the fair taken by the author's father. The pictures are very good and give a very good idea of the fair to anyone who is truly interested in the fair.

The map of the fair ground is interesting too, with its comparison to the present day Forest Park.

In addition, Mrs. Daniels Birk has explained the activities and events at the fair ground in a very smooth manner, from the eyes of a visitor !!

This is not a detailed narration of the fair. I know there were 45 nations represented at the fair. I was especially looking for any mention about a building on East India, but couldn't find anything about it.

A real good book !

I first read this book, quite by chance, a year or two after I returned from Vietnam. I have read it several times since then; specifically, whenever my memory starts to fail me, and I start to think about how good I had it in the Army.

Like the Army itself, Yancey's War is short on actuall combat scenes and long on abject misery. Although the story takes place during the Second World War, it was just as relivant in 1971 as it was in 1945. And I suspect that a GI reading it today would relate to most, if not all, of the events in the book. No book that I have ever read captures the essense of just how bad it bites to be an enlisted man in the US Army, the way Hoffman did with this book. And it surprises me that it isn't better known than it is.

Oh yes, we all know this man. This Yancey and his limitations. We all find him sometimes despicable and often pathetic. We, from time to time, want to to leave--to put the book down and take a deep breath--but can't. We have to see it through to the end. Too well written. Too unbelievably descriptive. After the last sentence, you close the book and say one word: Damn.

Beautifully various and distinguished--like a needle in the eye. I adore this book and this poet.

Year of Morphines
Poems
Betsy Brown
The National Poetry Series / Selected by George Garrett
"Allusive, edgy, smart, and utterly relentless, the poems of Year of Morphines move gracefully in the zone between our necessary morphine spells of forgetting and life's implausible reclamations: `. . . all these stories ending with life.'"-George Garrett, from his judge's citation
Betsy Brown is no stranger to loss. Breast cancer runs rampant in her family; both her mother and her thirty-two-year-old sister died of the disease and another sister has been diagnosed with its late stages. Her father also fell victim to cancer, this time pancreatic. The poems in Brown's stunning first book pivot around the mechanisms we use in facing loss and fear-whether those confrontations are as wrenching as a bone marrow transplant or as confused as a brief love.
In lyric verses with a driving narrative force, the poet depicts loved ones coping with illness, sometimes achieving recovery, and reshaping a family. From his hospital bed a father relates "the color of his pain-killers, / the in-and-out narcotic conversations / of the doomed." A woman recalls Baltimore, where her sister received treatment, as "a city of doctors, messy brain scans, / slick cobblestoned lanes thick / with Christmas." She returns to the spot where her sister's cremated remains were scattered, relishing "the secrets of ashes, / the clean wash of lake water / like all the nights we sat / with the little waves lapping."
An unusually intimate collection, Year of Morphines is both a heartbreaking portrait of the process of death and encouraging evidence of life's perseverance.
A native of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Betsy Brown works in corporate communications in Minneapolis.

The Louisiana crawfish has been known the world over as a delicious food source, but only recently have other practical uses for the crustacean been discovered. This is a funny book of cartoons, an interesting keepsake for anyone who loves Louisiana food and culture.

I am from New Orleans, and this book was a great reference. You can discover the city, and even learn more about fun things and the historical places to see in New Orleans, and not just the night life! - Which is great, but we have days too and they are worth the time to explore this beautiful city of ours.

Any serious student of public speaking needs to read it. It's so insightful and easy to read.

Item contains useful information for anyone attempting a genealogical exploration, which might include an ancestor of color who lived in the New Orleans area at post Civil War time. (reviewer's disclosure: the author is my sister)