Louisiana Books

"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.

 The day I learned of Richard Lowe's publication of the diary and letters of James C. Bates I ordered the book. I read Bates' diary and letters first then re-read the entire book. I was fascinated! In his letters, Bates reveals his feelings much more often than most Civil War soldiers. I have often wondered how he survived such a dreadful wound. His description of forcing a tube down his horridly damaged throat would make anyone cringe. I knew a descendant of James C. Bates had the major's Civil War papers, but I had no idea where to find that person. This book is a valuable contribution to the history of a band of brave and dedicated young men who deserve recognition. Their brigade, made up of the First Texas Legion, the Third, the Sixth, and the Ninth Texas Cavalry, is the only Texas cavalry brigade to serve east of the Mississippi. They were transferred from the TransMississippi to Corinth in April 1862 and remained in the Confederate West to the end of the war. In the Official Records they were known as the Texas Cavalry Brigade and later in the war as Ross's Cavalry Brigade. I have a special interest in the Ninth Texas Cavalry and would have paid a large ransom for Lowe's book a couple of years ago. I am elated to add it to my library. My mother remembered two uncles, Reuben and Jesse Rogers, who served with the Ninth. Her stories and a few old family records started my research on the regiment ten years ago. In January of this year Avon Books published my book about the Ninth and Ross's Brigade - All Afire to Fight - The Untold Tale of the Civil War's Ninth Texas Cavalry. See Amazon.com for description and reviews of All Afire to Fight.

In our family my great aunt was the keeper of this rare piece of glass pressed into a frame, not even as big as a deck of cards. It was the likeness of my great-great grandfather, a supposed captain in some Confederate unit, captured in an ambrotype, a primitive form of photograph. I peered at him as a child as he proudly gazed back at me from more than a century ago, his hat flamboyantly cocked, beard prominent, and pistols visible at his waist.

We never knew what the war was like for him, the details of his life blurred by a sketchy oral tradition: Didn't know what he thought about the cause in which he was engaged; what he thought about his fellow soldiers; about the Union; about his family. We didn't know why he came back home to Arkansas, so we were told, in the middle of the war, only to die. Had he been wounded or taken ill? Had he deserted, or just walked away on a long odyssey home, as Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain soldier had?

These past few days, though, have offered a vivid and authentic picture of how life must have been for my forebear. Richard Lowe, Regents Professor of History at the University of North Texas, pulled all the strands of that world together in this book.

Captain, then Major, then Lieutenant Colonel Bates' letters and diary entries, along with Lowe's invaluable geographical markers and chronological waystations, give us a true picture of the trials -- physical, mental and emotional -- that must have weighed heavily on those young men in the maelstrom of war.

Bates' own psyche tilts at the eternal and epic questions of Everyman's life and death throughout the book. In some letters, the young Bates playfully teases his future wife Mootie. In others, the darker hand of war and combat color his mind. His lightheartedness with Mootie stands out against the grisly accounts of terrible battles and revenge. In one he reports that his men "set a good many" former slaves who had gone over to the Union side "to stretching hemp," a euphemism for hanging.

As Bates' letters and diaries continue throughout the war, his own accounts of rumors brought into his camp and his joy at optimistic accounts of victories reported leave us pitying his soul, for he knows not yet of the war's inexorable grinding on the Confederacy. Lowe's ample and informative historical notes and charts force us to twist privately in our seats as we read, unable from this vantage point to even vicariously enlighten or encourage Bates in his travels and battles through the Indian Territory, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

Bates would hear of nothing to dampen the spirits of the Confederate cause, evidenced by a letter to his sister, a scalding scolding, after she had written to him a particularly depressing letter. "Why all this gloom," he asks. "You permit your imagination to conjure up a thousand dangers & difficulties & causes for trouble that have no existence in reality." Then, after a tub-thumping sermon on reasons for bearing up under the strain: "Make an effort to appear cheerful at all times - and making the effort to appear so will soon really make you feel so."

Bates' optimism bears up even when he contemplates continuation of the war after the fall of Vicksburg and Atlanta.

Analyses of the deeper reasons for the conflict pepper Bates' writings, based many times on his reading of letters and papers captured from Union soldiers. Then, as if it is all a joke, he relates a story of how the belligerents, negotiating in 1861, came to terrible disagreement over which side would take Mississippi. Abraham Lincoln, who in this tale really didn't want anything to do with Mississippi, reluctantly offers to take half, then precipitating the war, since the South could not bear to have only half. Bates despised Mississippi. On his second trip there, he was obliged to admit that his Confederate troops were treated better than before, the locals having got a dose of the Yankee medicine since his last visit, a medicine which he felt had taught them to respect the presence of their own Confederate troops.

Bates' use of American slang still rings true in the ear today, with his talk of having the "blues" from time to time, but his prose is undeniably pristine and proper. His take on the ineptitude of Confederate leaders is poignant and his analysis of politics is deadly sharp.

Possibly while on a visit back home, he, like so many soldiers in other conflicts, left a code with his friend Mootie, which allowed him to pass along information to her which could have compromised the troops' mission have it been general knowledge. Lowe includes the two instances of the code in use, along with a facsimile of the actual key used in deciphering. How exciting and intimate it must have been to think of passing along privileged information along to his future partner.

Bates also follows the lead of many other soldiers, finding God, or "taking religion," after his brush with death and subsequent injury. He assures his mother that if he were to die, he would be reunited with her one day in the heavens.

The war for Bates ended with his inability to return home for a while. He spent time wandering Mississippi, in all likelihood working through events that changed him from a young innocent to a vengeful, physically shattered man.

Bates was lucky enough to have survived a minié ball wound to the mouth, and lived a productive life for some time after the war, unlike my "Captain," who died before the war was over. Even so, I, and many others who may have wondered about their forebear in their own carefully passed-along photo, now have something to go on, something that reveals the real world of a Confederate soldier, the hopes, the joys, the wrenching twists of morals and psyche.

The Union made several unsuccessful attempts to invade Texas during the War Between the States. This book gives a short but lively history of The Texas Overland Expedition of 1863 and biographies of officers of both armies.
To understand the war in Louisana and the following Red River campaign of 1864 this book should be read. If this 1863 expedition would have been successful then the Red River Campaign would not have happened.
There is not overflowing information about this expedition available. This book provides a entertaining understanding.
Could Union General Nathaniel P. Banks be the McClellan of the West? No, McClellan was never that bad.

I enjoyed this book for several reasons. It is short; yet it is detailed enough to effectively describe the battles in this campaign. It also includes brief profiles of the commanders of the particular conflicts-both Federal and Confederate. And an interesting fact from this Texas Overland Expedition was the presence of six governors of Texas in the two armies.

This story about Texas and a Civil War Campaign all started with a plan conceived in the minds of a group of New England businessmen some two decades before the Civil War and that didn't even take place in Texas. However, when these northerners realized that war was inevitable and that Texas was siding with the Confederate States, rather than give up their lucrative idea, they considered the war to be in their favor. If they could enlist the help of the president and War Department, they could move into Texas under the Union Flag and consequently have the Federal troops to protect their northern settlers. From this nucleus, the story evolved to its climax of the battle. It is good reading.

This is a fun book to read or sing a long to. Sometimes, we play Johnette's CD, From the Gumbo Pot, and turn the pages to the song instead of reading words. My son loves this book and so do the kids in my Pre-K class! It exposes/teaches the children to so many things: great story, collage art as an illustrative tool, Louisiana culture, days of the week, rhythm.... My picky 2 1/2 year old has also become interested in trying some of these foods! So, I love it!

Excellent book!! Even my 22-month-old daughter can read by herself, and she loves to read again and again everyday.