National political pundits Donna Brazile, David Brooks, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough will headline the new and expanded New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University, to be held March 19-21 on the Tulane campus.
Best-selling author Renée Ahdieh remembers the moment that led her to become a writer.
“Darkness exists because light gives it permission to exist,” photographer Robert S. Brantley said. “Shadows make everything cohesive in my photographs. Light dances when it meets darkness. It’s always a matter of light dancing. I want my photos t…
Berthe Amoss, who built a career as an author and illustrator while rearing six sons, died in her sleep Sunday at her Pass Christian, Mississippi, home, her son Jim Amoss said. She was 94.
CANDACE TAKES NEW ORLEANS
When Candace Bushnell started the New York Observer “Sex and the City” column in November 1994, little did she know that she would start a worldwide phenomenon, particularly after the columns were compiled into a bestselling book published in 1997…
When Charles Bukowski arrived in New Orleans in 1942, he worked for the New Orleans Item newspaper as an errand boy in the composing room. Bukowski explored the city before he moved on, though he returned in subsequent years. Bukowski’s most last…
Sarah Broom exits Interstate 10 onto Chef Menteur Highway, heading back to her childhood home, to the ghost of it, really. “There’s Natal’s,” she said, pointing out a small supermarket on the right, “where we used to go.”
It’s early on a Tuesday morning, and Sister Helen Prejean is about to make another pilgrimage to Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, this time to visit death-row inmate Manuel Ortiz. “I think we have a chance at getting him out this time,” she…
The news about the Arthur G. Dozier School in Marianna, Florida, broke in 2012. This juvenile reform school, opened in 1900, closed in 2011, home to generations of boys, was also a place where boys were abused and tortured, and where, eventually, …
If you’re going to write a book about “100 Catholic Things to Do Before You Die,” being born and raised in New Orleans would definitely give you a head start.
It takes a certain kind of charm to convince a patron at a charity gala to spend thousands of dollars on something they didn’t know they wanted. That’s exactly the charm wielded by Lake Charles native Lydia Fenet, auctioneer for Christie's.
Everything about Ron Swoboda is a little larger than life.
"Cajun Chameleon" by Jimmie Martinez, The Lisburn Press, 386 pages, hardcover, $24.95
Books in dozens of genres, plus CDs, DVDs, vinyl records, sheet music, original artwork and posters will be for sale at the 66th annual Symphony Book Fair this weekend at the UNO Lakefront Arena, as an enthusiastic team of volunteers rallies to su…
"Louisiana Poets, A Literary Guide" by Catharine Savage Brosman and Olivia McNeely Pass, University Press of Mississippi, 256 pages, cloth cover, $28
Like many first-time visitors to New Orleans, Ani DiFranco took one look at the city and knew she’d be back.
When Meg Tilly was nominated for an Academy Award in 1986 for her supporting role in "Agnes of God," the 25-year-old sat in the audience on Oscar night hoping Anjelica Huston would walk away with the prize.
In the skillful writing of biographer Nigel Hamilton, history is a living thing, something you can see and hear, reach out and touch. History has an immediacy for him that has come to life in more than 25 books.
New Orleans author Robert W. Fieseler's debut book has been awarded the 2019 Edgar Award in Best Fact Crime by the Mystery Writers of America.
"You're in Big Treble" by Paris Daniels, independently published, 24 pages, paperback, $6.99
When Opal Grapes and the other Army nurses at the Axminster station hospital near the English Channel heard a terrible roaring early on June 6, 1944, they knew their personal longest day had begun.
Bryan Washington is a connoisseur of cities. He knows the streets and neighborhoods of his native Houston well, delineating the porous borders of city life with the precision of a cartographer. In his first collection of short stories, “Lot,” almo…
"Ghost Trippin'" by Cherie Claire, Happy Gris Gris Publishing, 262 pages, paperback, $9.99
In 1990, NASA’s Voyager spacecraft beamed back a picture of a tiny blue dot in the blackness of space.
You just never know about other people, even the folks next door.
“Lucky Enough: A Year of a Dad’s Daily Notes of Encouragement and Life Lessons to His Daughter” by Chris Yandle, Page Publishing, 214 pages, paperback, $15.95
Like previous years, the 2019 Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival features an impressive lineup of writers, scholars and theatrical performances dedicated to America’s favorite playwright.
When Nick Mueller walks through the D-Day section of the National WWII Museum, it’s not the wall-sized picture of the German defense structures on Omaha and Utah beaches he wants visitors to see.
The arc of Carnival history is both long and predictable. Someone has an idea for a good time, someone else agrees, friends gather to make it happen, and next thing you know, you’ve been doing it for half a century with more than 1,000 people.
On any list of famous Supreme Court rulings, Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 case that resulted in the “separate but equal” ruling, appears near the top.
This is a story about a courageous woman who found her voice and the dedicated man who wrote a book about it.
"The New Iberia Blues" by James Lee Burke, Simon & Schuster, 447 pages, hardcover, $27.99
"I told myself I didn't know why I was standing on the bank of a tidal stream in rain that was coming down harder by the second. That wasn't true. For me, the rain has always been the conduit between the visible and the unseen worlds …The rain was…
Hitting the greatest home run in the history of LSU baseball 23 years ago continues to give Warren Morris opportunities to share stories of that moment — and his faith.
Award-winning authors Jack Bedell, Jason Berry, Alysson Foti Bourque, Dima Ghawi, C.H. Lawler and Erica Spindler are on tap for the Writers and Readers Symposium to be held Saturday, Feb. 16, in St. Francisville.
It’s a wonderful thing when the stars align for a book, when the book is brilliant, the writer is ready, and the readership is eager. Expect that to happen as New Orleanian Maurice Carlos Ruffin debuts his new novel, “We Cast a Shadow.”
"Kings, Conquerors, Psychopaths: From Alexander to Hitler to the Corporation" by Joseph N. Abraham, MD; University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press; 304 pages; paperback; $24.95
Like many good ideas in New Orleans, Luna Press began over drinks on a French Quarter balcony. Photographer Josephine Sacabo and her husband, writer Dalt Wonk, recalled a visit with Mexican guests, during which discussion turned to founding a publ…