Louisiana Books

Dr. Stone is a genius with words. His stirring descriptions of his travels, the people and places he has met, and his sensual reactions to each draw the reader into the circumstances and delight the senses. Keep writing, Doc. Keep writing!

One of the things I truly enjoy about reading is seeing our shared world through another's eyes. In my opinion, that's what the best writing gives us.

Mullenix's eyes see a world of variety and wide scope -- a world of nature that is shrinking as development impinges. His spare words are deftly combined to convey a place, a character, a passion, a sadness.

He contemplates his world through his own and his primary character's eyes: Charlie the Harris' hawk. What he reveals is a falconry hunting season's worth of descriptions of the hunting itself, and the place that hunting holds in both his and Charlie's world, which is the Bayou Country of Baton Rouge.

While it is written by a falconer, there are aspects of his essays that hold immediate relevance to anyone interested in the wild world that surrounds us and the species that co-habitate that world with us. He simply and without editorializing describes the difficulties he's had explaining the concepts of hunting, eating, and dying to his three-year-old twin daughters; how his own passion for falconry impinges on his spouse and his boss; the internal debate where passion overshadows reason and we all do things we later regret; and the loss of habitat in his own environs -- habitat as important for his wild neighbors as for himself.

Mullenix, however, doesn't try to solve the problem of human expansion into wild areas; he doesn't even rail against the system. He looks at the fact with a raptor's eye, in crystal clarity, and one expects, with a tear.

Not all is gloom and doom, as the Naturalist's Eye surveys the cycle of life, of seasons, of hunting and not-hunting, of living and dying, of the ways our disparate lives intersect with one another. It combines the hunter writer into an entity sought by the naturalist in all of us, and confirms our suspicion that we've also been a character in the book all along.

"In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee: The Wilderness Through Cold Harbor" combines the writing of Gordon Rhea, the foremost modern historian of the Civil War's 1864 Overland Campaign, with the eye of photographer Chris Heisey to produce a spectacularly beautiful "coffee table book". Rhea's text might be considered a distillation of his massive four volumes (a fifth is in preparation) about the Overland Campaign that stretched from the Wilderness to Cold Harbor in May and June, 1864, the narrative in "In the Footsteps of Grant and Lee" providing a concise yet vivid word picture. Heisey's photographs for the most part are "artistic" rather than efforts to precisely record battlefield topography, but those photographs are haunting in their emotional impact. In addition, this large-scale volume is illustrated with a good selection of contemporary photographs and drawings and with numerous maps of the military operations, some of the best and most clear maps I have seen dealing with this complex campaign. Rhea and Heisey very evidently hope that their efforts will stimulate interest in preserving these battlefields in northern Virgina. Rhea's words convey a strong sense of the importance and drama of what happened there; Heisey's photogrpahs capture the beauty of nature and building still to be seen.

Peter Taylor is one of the few writers who can stand toe to toe with Chekhov, and their work has a lot in common. Their characters are complex and full-blown. Their stories are subtle but stick in the mind and you may find yourself reinterpreting them long after you read them. But unlike Chekhov, Peter Taylor didn't publish a great deal -- a few books of short stories, a couple of short novels or novellas, some poems, a play or two. It's all so good that it's hard to pick a favorite, but this may be mine. This is real fiction for real adults.

This is a fine read, and it was delivered in a timely fashion.

I came across this book while writing a paper about the 1904 World's Fair in college and did not expect to become so engrossed in it. Clevenger makes the reader feel like they are sitting at the Fair right next to the four Fair visitors she examines. This book is more than an easy-reading novel, though. Clevenger sets the Fair into a larger social and political context and shows the reader how the 1904 World's Fair had concrete repercussions on the worldviews of its visitors. The novel-like format and use of diaries from the Fair are merely more effective ways to hold our attention.

I want to know all about Mississipi City Histor

Hummer is one of my favorite poets, and this book is distinct and powerful. It's a suite of poems, based on jazz and blues musicians, but it also tells the cultural history of the country--especially from the 40s through the 70s--through the lives of those musicians, who were tortured, sometimes, troubled, but also visionary. The section "about" Sun Ra is especially powerful. Are you sick of smartaleck poetry, or unreadable oblique verse, or unpeopled deconstructions of, well, whatever? Me too. Read Hummer. He's the real thing.

The newest addition to the outstanding and very highly recommended 'Bed & Breakfast' cookbook series from the Wisconsin-based regional publisher Guest Cottage, "INNcredible Cookin': Favorite Recipes From Louisiana's Best Bed & Breakfast Innes, Cottages & Guesthouses" is a culinary celebration of the best that Louisiana has to offer the informal traveler and vacationer. Beginning with a listing of the participating inns and where in this outstanding compilation they are to be individually found, the reader is also provided with a state map of Louisiana with the location of these inns pinpointed. This is followed by a city-by-city guide to their locations as well. Then the reader is treated to succinct descriptions of Cajun history and cuisine, instructions on 'How to Make a Roux', and an impressive roster of Louisiana's many festivals. The rest of "INNcredible Cookin'" is taken up with a brief description of a particular inn and the step-by-step recipes for one or two of their signature dishes. From White Cream Gravy (Susan's Cottages); to Shrimp Maison Reve (Maison Reve Farm); to Louisiana Redneck Potatoes (Log Cabin on Cane River Guest House); to Cheese Grits (Bayou Saint John Bed & Breakfast); to Raisin Bread Strata with Sausage and Plums (Sully Mansion); to Spinach Madeline (Green Springs Inn and Cottages); to Mardi Gras Vegetable Jambalaya (Nottoway Plantation Restaurant and Inn), "INNcredible Cookin'" offers authentic gourmet quality dishes that are as easy to prepare as they are palate pleasing and appetite satisfying.

The academically impressive and deftly collaborative editorial effort of Lesley J. Gordon (Associate Professor of History, University of Akron) and John C. Inscoe (Professor of History, University of Georgia), "Inside The Confederate Nation" is a compilation of essays in honor of Emory M. Thomas by a series of learned contributors and scholars that focus on the subject of the conservative revolution of 1861 that transformed an essentially conservative American South into a radically different socio-political culture by the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865. The contributions are organized into four major sections: 'Nationalism and Identity'; 'Family and Gender'; 'Race'; 'Memory and Legacies'. Enhanced with an informative introduction by Professors Gordon and Incoe, and the article by Russell Duncan and Jennifer Lund Smith, 'Emory M. Thomas and the Confederate Imagination', and concluding with a Select Bibliography, a list of Editors and Contributors, and a comprehensive Index, "Inside The Confederate Nation is a superbly presented and organized model of anthologized, specialized, analytical historical studies. Also available in a hardcover edition (9780807130995, $65.00), "Inside The Confederate Nation" is a very strongly recommended addition to academic and community library Civil War Studies and 19th Century American History Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.