BOOKPATHS

New Orleans, Louisiana

In the September issue of Smithsonian, Randy Fertel explains why New Orleans is "my kind of town."

New Orleans is a Southern anomaly: in the South but not of the South, more Catholic (or pagan) than Baptist, as much Caribbean (or Mediterranean) as American. Almost everything here bears explanation, even how we orient ourselves. Because of the curve in the Mississippi River that makes us the Crescent City, we look to its West Bank for the sunrise. North Rampart is east of South Rampart. Since standard directionals are unreliable, we use our own: Lake Pontchartrain is on one side of the city; the Mississippi River on the other. Riverside and lakeside, Uptown and Downtown, as the river flows: those make up our compass rose.

St. Francisville, Louisiana, U.S.

Vanessa Gregory visits the Louisiana of John James Audubon.

West Felciana’s scenery has surprised other travelers in the years since Audubon visited. Its center today, St. Francisville, is a collection of historic cottages, old churches and newer buildings perched on a ridge above the Mississippi, 30 minutes north of Baton Rouge. Although it may be less celebrated than Natchez, Miss., 60 miles north, the region exudes the almost-supernatural beauty of which Audubon wrote. – from “Visiting Audubon’s Still-Fine Feathered Friends,” by Vanessa Gregory, The New York Times

Arna Bontemps African American Museum, Alexandria, Louisiana, U.S.

Housed in his childhood home, The Arna Bontemps (1902-1973) African American Museum honors the life and work of the “noted Black poet, author, anthologist, [and] librarian.”  See the museum’s website for visitor information.

Bontemps is credited with writing over 20 books, plays, and anthologies and was considered the leading authority on the Harlem Renaissance. He was part of a core of young Black writers who led the 'New Negro' movement. Bontemps wanted a front row seat to view and participate in the stirrings of jazz, theater and literature taking place in Harlem. His scholarly interest in fostering a new appraisal of his race and reevaluation of the Black man's place in American history is just a part of his legacy. His children's books are unique and his poetry and writings convey the rhythms and richness of the African American culture which was to influence a number of writers who followed him. – from the Arna Bontemps African American Museum Website

New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.

Lynell George interviews Julia Reed, whose new book, The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story, describes her connection to a place.

“It's what happens when your life becomes entwined with a place as curious as New Orleans. The House on First Street is not just about Reed's slapstick-esque struggle with rehabbing her house pre-storm with men-for-hire – ‘A sort of Year in Provence meets The Poseidon Adventure as one friend put it,’ she cracks, in her mentholated, party-girl drawl. It is about how the meaning of house, home and family redefined itself for her over time. Reed's book tackles what is often difficult to quantify: the stitching-together of a life that doesn't follow a traditional path; the gradations of privilege; a widening understanding of community. Writing the book ‘helped me make sense about how I got seduced by the city, and how I got seduced by my husband and, I guess, seduced by the idea of a house.’" – from “A Memoir of New Orleans’ Strength, Not Katrina’s,” by Lynell George, Los Angeles Times

New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.

On NPR's Morning Edition, mystery writer Julie Smith “offers a tour of the hauntingly Gothic city she calls home."

'They say that New Orleans must be a great place to write mysteries because of all the crime there,' says Smith, the author of more than a dozen books set in the city. 'But that has nothing to do with [crime] — it's all about the secrets.' – from NPR Website

New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Old Creole Days, by George Washington Cable (Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing, reprint 2001; originally published in 1879)

Online Edition – Project Gutenberg

George Washington Cable was a popular writer in his day, sharing a friendship and the lecture stage with Mark Twain. Today, although his writing style may feel dated, his books continue to provide a “picture” of time and place. In the case of Old Creole Days, a collection of short stories “recount[ing] the adventures, love lives, and misfortunes of Creoles,” readers are transported to New Orleans society in the 1800s.

“A few steps from the St. Charles Hotel, in New Orleans, brings you to and across Canal Street, the central avenue of the city, and to that corner where the flower-women sit at the inner and outer edges of the arcaded sidewalk, and make the air sweet with their fragrant merchandise. The crowd – and if it is near the time of the carnival it will be great – will follow Canal Street.

But you turn, instead, into the quiet, narrow way which a lover of Creole antiquity, in fondness for a romantic past, is still prone to call the Rue Royale.” -- from “Madame Delphine,” Old Creole Days, George Washington Cable

Bookpath: Bayou Folk Museum – Kate Chopin House, 243 Highway 495, Cloutierville, Louisiana

Originally built in the early 1800s by Alexis Coultier, The Kate Chopin House honors the author’s life, while also serving as the Bayou Folk Museum. The author of The Awakening, Bayou Folk, and other works, moved into the “two-story French Creole cottage,” with her husband and six children, in 1879. Her husband died in 1882, but Chopin stayed on until 1884 when she and her children moved to St. Louis. She sold the house five years later.

Today, visitors can tour the second floor rooms where the Chopin family lived, along with a restored doctor’s office and a blacksmith shop. Now a National Historic Landmark, The Kate Chopin House is open for tours from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sundays. They can be reached at 318-379-2233. For additional information, visit one of the websites listed below.

Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches – Kate Chopin House

Kate Chopin House (Cane River National Heritage Area)

New Orleans, Louisiana

In Katrina’s Wake : Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster, by Elizabeth Royte, Bill McKibben and Susan Zakin; photographs by Chris Jordan (New York : Princeton Architectural Press, 2006)

In Katrina’s Wake : Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster interweaves the photographs of Chris Jordan and essays by Elizabeth Royte, Bill McKibben and Susan Zakin to “capture the tragedy” and explore its “causes and effects.” A portion of the profits will help rebuild New Orleans.

“…my hope is that these images might encourage some reflection on the part that we each play, and the loss that we all suffer, when a preventable catastrophe of this magnitude happens to the people of our own country. Katrina has illuminated our interconnectedness, and it makes our personal accountability as members of a conscious society ever more difficult to deny.” – Chris Jordan

Related Websites

Publisher’s website

Chris Jordan Photography
(Includes images from In Katrina’s Wake)

New Orleans, Louisiana

Ernest J. Gaines writes about New Orleans in the August National Geographic.

“New Orleans, New Orleans, New Orleans, you will come back. But will you be my New Orleans, or the little boy's New Orleans, or the woman's New Orleans, or the Joseph sisters' New Orleans? I doubt it. Katrina and the politicians have made you a different New Orleans forever.” – from “Home No More,” by Ernest J. Gaines, National Geographic Magazine

Gulf Coast - Louisiana, Mississippi

Library Journal reports on the “nearly $18 million offered to rebuild post-hurricane Public Library Service.”

“On the eve of the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in New Orleans, and in the wake of ongoing devastation of public library service following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last year, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, and the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Thursday announced major grants to support Gulf Coast public libraries in Louisiana and Mississippi.” – from Library Journal