louisiana

I’ve long enjoyed reading Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series. So long that I barely remembered what happened in the first book, Dead Until Dark. Instead of rereading it, I decided to listen to the audio. I’m glad I did.

The narrator, Johanna Parker, captures the essence of Sookie in all her different moods – perky, angry, scared, nervous, ecstatic, and so on. It was a treat to hear Sookie come alive.

I’m always in awe of how one person can sound like many different people. Ms. Parker does a creditable job of making all the different characters have a different voice – tone, pitch

True story.  In 1818, a very young German immigrant orphan is bought (indentured) for the cost of her ocean passage from Europe to New Orleans.  Twenty five years later she is spotted on the streets of the city - the slave of a wealthy, well-connected, though quite unpopular local businessman.  The German community rallied around her, determined to free her by proving in a court of law that Sally Miller the slave was the same person as Salome Muller, redemptioner and white woman.
This is a fascinating page of investigative social and legal history.  The author has sorted through a complex

Set in small town Tula Springs, Louisiana, Modern Baptists is the story of middle-aged bachelor Bobby Pickens who decides to let his recently released ex-con half-brother move in with him. Bobby makes this decision because he thinks he is dying of melanoma and there will be no one to mourn his death. After half-brother F.X. moves in, Bobby learns that he doesn't have cancer after all. But it's too late to dislodge F.X., who has settled in for the long term. F.X.'s aim in life is to be a celebrity--preferably a film star but after getting caught selling cocaine while working at a dinner theatre

I'd give this a 3-star rating for personal enjoyment of the topic but a 5-star rating for being an essential historical document of the early 21st century. So a 4-star compromise it is.

Ned Sublette's dramatic crescendo of a book is the culmination of pre-flood NOLA history. His 10 month fellowship at Tulane was during the pregnant pause before Katrina, just prior to the "murdery summer" that gave birth to the fall of a city. If you're not into musicology and serious southern history, this book just isn't going to work for you. Sublette is a professional musician, photographer, and erstwhile