Louisiana Books

In this thorough and readable study, Daniel C. Littlefield examines the African heritage of rice cultivation in colonial South Carolina. Littlefield discusses the choices rice planters made in securing workers from certain African regions; he also discusses the knowledge these Africans brought to the plantation economy. Littlefield argues that expertise in rice cultivation mostly came to South Carolina from Africa. Rice was grown by the Malagasy, the people of Madagascar, and by many peoples of Upper Guinea (a region encompassing the modern nations of Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia). South Carolina planters, in fact, paid the highest prices for workers from Senegambia (the environs of the Senegal and Gambia rivers), a major center of rice cultivation in Africa. Littlefield argues that, throughout the era of the slave trade, South Carolina merchants and planters showed an increasingly sophisticated knowledge of African regions and ethnic groups. He also asserts that not only African labor, but African expertise helped generate the wealth of the opulent Carolina Lowcountry. This work should prove interesting to those interested in African-American history, Southern history, and colonial American demography. Particularly intriguing is Littlefield's research based on the newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves in South Carolina. That portion of the work includes a list of different African ethnic groups present in South Carolina.

Enjoyed learning more about southern authors, especially since I'm from the south.

Profusely illustrated with color photography, "Hillside Letters A to Z: A Guide To hometown Landmarks" by Evelyn Corning is a visual travel guide and history of sixty iconic images associated with selected villages, towns, and cities across fourteen western states. From those giant letters on a mountain slope above a town, to iconic memorials honoring historical incidents in American history, the reader is treated to a tour that is as entertaining as it is informative about those curious letters that are carved and/or painted above their associated communities. Very highly recommended for curious travelers making their way through America by car or plane, and enhanced with a list of more than four hundred other known U.S. hillside letters and a map showing letter sites nationwide, "Hillside Letters A to Z" is as informative as it is entertaining as it explores the origins, customs and controversies associated with those sometimes mysterious but always fascinating community icons representing their schools and towns.

I would like to recommend this title to anyone who is sick and tired of fluffy literary criticism geared to non-readership by all-too-familiar cast of fellow profs. The book challenges readers and general thinking alike; it pushes the limits of reception theory by pushing the limits of understanding literature, not by its own invention and caprice, but by following the ideas of early romantics on the subject. If reading literature by the general public is to escape the bondage of NYT Book Review's top ten list of anything, then this approach can offer a fresh look at literature free from market forces, melodrama, who-done-it thriller and biography quagmire that beset this country. Not to mention the trash in the academic circles bent on making each book an increasingly incomprehensible and pretentious stepping stone to the medicore pleasures of tenure. Read on. You may tire of most passages, but the syntax and individual insights in this book will puzzle, provoke, and amaze (or amaz-on) every reader whose eyelids do not stick to paper 1 minute after reading any fine print. The author

What is more characteristic of Louisiana eats than gumbo? "Rouxdolph's Louisiana: Gumbo and Soup Book" provides EASY recipes for preparing gumbo and other soups. C'est facile!

Like Louisiana's population reflecting the cultural melting pot, gumbo is reflective of cultural ingredients. Dispossessed French came to the shores of South Louisiana to settle in the mid-1700's after being expelled from the area of Nova Scotia in Canada. Eventually, these Acadians became Cajuns and utilized wild game (rabbit, squirrel, alligator, turtle), seafoods from the bayous and lakes (crawfish, shrimp, crabs), and wild water fowl for the meat in gumbo. Add the okra from Africa as a thickener or file from sassafras trees introduced by Indians and--voila--you have a big pot of gumbo! Serve it over hot, fluffy rice with a fresh loaf of french bread, and you have a little of Louisiana set before you! Mais oui, cher!

What makes this 96-page cookbook so special are the simple instructions and plastic spinal binding that allows the book to fold open. Print is larger than normal. Although directions for roux are easy to follow, you can buy roux from the market in liquid or powder form for faster preparation.

Only one recipe is set on each page. Merci, bien! There are no pictures of the final products--but with this book, that is not even a disadvantage. What pictures are included are pen-and-ink illustrations of an ingredient in the recipe. Me, moi, I'm looking at Green Sausage Gumbo (sounds gross, yes?), but the green is cabbage, and shows an illustration of a head of cabbage. C'est tout!

Here are some varieties of gumbo you can make: Catfish Gumbo, Chicken and Oyster, Chicken Okra, Creole (shrimp and okra), Duck Sausage, Hearty Beef, Seafood Okra (my favorite with shrimp, crab, oysters, and okra), Squirrel, Turkey, Wild Goose, and others.

Soups include Alligator (a New Orleans restaurant fave), Corn and Shrimp, Fowl Weather, Front Porch, Hare, Hobo, Onion (but not French Onion), Oyster, Sauerkraut, Lettuce Soup, Corn, and others.

Amazon's sellers are offering twelve of these books, priced from less than $3.00 to over $190 (its the same book, cher,). If the weather is too hot now, put the book on the shelf until the weather changes in the fall, take it down, and put on a pot of gumbo! Nothing will warm you better! Mais oui!

This collection of essays brings together works by a variety of well-known scholars in the field of the geography of religion and pilgrimage studies. The book has three notable strengths. First, it combines theoretical or analytical discussions of pilgrimage as a generic phenomenon with detailed case studies of particular pilgrimage processes. Second, it provides a well-developed comparative perspective by considering pilgrimage traditions in a variety of world religions. Christianity, Islam and Hinduism receive the most detailed coverage, but Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism also receive significant attention. The book's third strength is that it demonstrates how the perspectives of geography as an academic disciplines (perspectives which at least in the United States are often poorly understood) can yield unique and genuine insights into an important dimension of religious culture. This work should prove to be a fascinating read to anyone interested in world religions, comparative religion, the geography of religion, or the social ramifications of religious belief.

"Secret Doctors: Ethnomedicine of African Americans" is a rare treat that blows away stereotypes that even some African Americans may have about their own healing practices. This is a well done study without the bias that colors much of the work on this topic. There is a generousity to Fontenot's writing style and curiousity that is most appreciated. "Secret Doctors" is a welcomed book for a wide range of readers--scholars, traditional healers, doctors, students and the curious. The book reviews some of the best literature in the field of ethnomedicine of African Americans but then opens the door to new ways of perceiving the research. The amulet section and healer's interviews are unique--a wonderful contribution to understanding African American magico-spiritual healing techniques as they relate back to West Africa. It is a slim volume in size but hefty in the contribution it makes to the field. Highly recommended.

This is my first review to write, although I've read many others. I felt compelled to do this as I saw no review had been written about this book and it really deserves one! It's beautiful to begin with and has many great, colorful illustrations. The recipes are interesting and different without being too tedious or difficult. There are even sections with information about herbs & spices, wine and food pairings, substitutions and large food quantities. I love it!

Academic prose is usually turgid, pompous, and vague, but Jackson's prose is clear and the book bounces along at a good clip. Considering the wide geographic and historical space that he's covering, that adds pleasure to the big-picture argument. The the book covers four pivotal American authors, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Toni Morrison. Each used regional identity to locate the characters in their short stories and novels. Jackson contends that they appropriated ideas of region to make a larger point about who they/we are as Americans, that local color and its easy claim to "authenticity" has made it a B-genre (a very enjoyable one at that). The four major authors Jackson covers used local color as a way to represent and challenge more broadly American themes like race and gender identities. His most powerful analyses come not from a discussion of Twain or Faulkner but in a comparison of Morrison's Jazz as an answer to F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, in which Morrison argues against Fitzgerald's implicit claims that his midwesterners could not assimilate to New York society. For a lay reader who enjoys indulging in southern literature, Seeking the Region will change how I re-read Twain, Faulkner, O'Connor, Morrison (and Fitzgerald, among others), since he asks questions that appear (now) to leap from the pages of major works of American literature that I thought I had figured out.

This is a great collection of letters to read if you're interested in literature, history, friendship, geography, and the overall human experience. Robert Penn Warren is a giant in American literature and he had some interesting friends, as well. His explicit letters give readers insight into his close relationships with some of these friends and they also dive into the psyche of Warren himself - and how he overcame great odds to find success.