It seems wrong to use a word like ordinary to describe any aspect of Jack Bedell’s poetry. His words are full of evocative metaphors that summon the smell of cane fields burning, the flash of a big redfish at the end of a fishing line, diamonds of light dappling a farm pond on a summer day. Continue reading →

ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW By Nathaniel Rich Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $26 Mitchell Zukor is a disaster waiting to happen — and waiting for disasters to happen to himself and the rest of us. The lonely neurotic at the center of … Continue reading →

More than 20,000 students throughout the state voted to choose the winners of the 2013 Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice Award and Louisiana Teen Readers’ Choice Award. Young Zeus by G. Brian Karas was the top choice among third through fifth graders while Smile by Raina Telgemeier received the most votes among middle school students. The Louisiana Teen Readers’ Choice … Continue reading →

Best-Sellers for May 12 Continue reading →

Long before Snooki, there was music. It seems quaint to remember a time when Americans didn’t have cable TV, before music videos and reality stars, but the original MTV VJs describe the beginning of one of the most influential media experiments of all time in “VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave.” Continue reading →

“Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And All the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic” (Simon & Schuster), by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong Jennifer Keishin Armstrong examines the creation of television’s “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” which defined a generation, in “Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted.” Using a “fly … Continue reading →

This is the story of the Sankofa child, whose Nia, or purpose, is to provide balance for the world of ImBalynce. Those who live in this world have heard the story, but many dismiss it as a myth. Stories of good and evil, a savior’s battle with a destructor, have been floating around since before The Shattering nearly 3,000 years ago. Continue reading →

There is a lot we don’t know about our nation’s literary tradition and a lot of 19th-century writers who defined their age but are read no longer. Professor Philip Gura of the University of North Carolina breathes new life into old and largely forgotten novels. Continue reading →

Best-Sellers for May 5 Continue reading →

Gregory Grandy, environmental manager, landscape architect and volunteer environmental educator, is passionate about Louisiana’s landscape, particularly preserving its coast. Grandy’s lifework is dedicated to preserving Louisiana’s coastline, a topic he will share at the Thursday, May 9, Foundation for Historical Louisiana’s monthly Heritage Lecture. The lecture will be held at 6 p.m. at FHL headquarters in the … Continue reading →

Novels focused on dystopian societies have been around for ages. Many have become famous for their depictions of what society could become in the future. “Atlas Shrugged,” “1984” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” are only a few among the many classics. Though the first dystopian novels were written centuries ago, their popularity for both novelists and readers has skyrocketed in the past 15 years. Continue reading →

Sometimes it really is about the destination and not the journey. This hard truth is one “William and the Lost Spirit” could stand to learn. Despite charming illustrations and surprisingly complex characters, a weak ending sucks the magic out of this tale. In the Middle Ages, young William’s life is thrown into chaos after his father dies and his mother chooses to marry a powerful but subtly sinister man named Brifaut. Continue reading →

There are great titles, and then there’s “Punk Rock Jesus.” Those three words tell the reader all they need to know: Jesus has come back, and this time, he’s got a Mohawk. In truth, this incendiary little graphic novel brings a surprising level of depth to a concept that sounds more like a “Saturday Night Live” sketch than an actual story. Continue reading →

There must not be a pothole in River Road (U.S. 61) between New Orleans and Baton Rouge that Mary Ann Sternberg hasn’t tested. Her venerated Along the River Road, Past and Present on Louisiana’s Historic Byway is in its 3rd edition (also just out from LSU Press). The scenic River Road is dotted with antebellum plantations, quaint towns, quirky attractions and out-of-the-way eateries. Continue reading →

James Salter’s first novel in more than 30 years is technically brilliant, filled with sharply etched characters and dialogue both natural and haunting — but soulless, those same characters repellently self-involved and emotionally bankrupt. Philip Bowman appears first as a junior naval officer at the battle of Okinawa repeating the mantra, “Do your duty fully and absolutely without unnecessary questions or excuses.” Continue reading →

The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC) and the LHA have chosen Lawrence N. Powell’s The Accidental City: Improvising New Orleans (Harvard University Press, 2012) winner of the 2012 Kemper and Leila Williams Prize in Louisiana History. The award was announced in Alexandria March 22 at the annual meeting of the Louisiana Historical Association. Powell is … Continue reading →

Best-Sellers for April 28 Continue reading →

Dressed in black leather leggings, ballet flats, a retro-Pucci silk tunic topped by a flounced jacket, sitting on a Recamier sofa, her bichon frise Miles Davis beside her, discussing the latest case with her associates, dwarf-like computer expert René Friant and down-at-the heels aristocrat Saj de Rosnay, she can only be Aimée Leduc, the most famous private detective in Paris. Continue reading →

Ruthie Leming died Sept. 15, 2011, in her home in Starhill, a little West Feliciana Parish place that’s really too small to even be called a town. Dreher is the brother of Leming, and this work centers on her death at age 42, but that is certainly not all this book is about. Continue reading →

Best-Sellers for April 21 Continue reading →

Author Mary Ann Sternberg will share insights about the River Road in a lecture sponsored by The Foundation for Historical Louisiana at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 25, at the Old Governor’s Mansion, 502 North Blvd. After 20 years prowling the River Road area, she brings intriguing perspectives of the historical byway as well as new tales about … Continue reading →

In the minds of many readers, Archie, Veronica, Jughead and all the citizens of Riverdale symbolize old-timey America. After all, Archie’s very first appearance was in 1941. Kevin Keller, the series’ first gay character, challenged this notion when his debut in 2010 became the first comic in the franchise’s history to sell out. Continue reading →

Imagine a city of more than 70,000 people hidden in plain sight. In 1942, the United States government decided to build just such a city in the hinderlands of Tennessee. It was to be the site of massive plants that would help build the secret weapon that the government hoped would speed the end of World War II. Continue reading →

The 15th Annual Women’s History Poetry Reading will be held at 4 p.m. Sunday, April 14, at the Baton Rouge Gallery, 1515 Dalrymple Drive. This long-standing event is a part of the gallery’s “Sunday’s@4” series. Original poems lasting 3 to 4 minutes about women, history or both will be read by a wide range … Continue reading →

Best-Sellers for April 14 Continue reading →

Creating a new Batman villain is no easy task. It’s hard to craft a baddie that won’t look tame next to iconic rogues like The Joker, Catwoman and Two Face. With “Batman Vol. 2: City of Owls” Scott Snyder concludes the tale that introduced a mysterious and deadly new threat into the Batman mythos and proves that even the Dark Knight can be taken by surprise once in a while. Continue reading →

Joseph Stalin represents a 20th century icon rooted in such infamy it boggles the mind how devastatingly effective his Communist political apparatus operated during his nearly 30 years in power. The Russian leader’s zeal for his political philosophy impacted the trajectory of world politics for generations. Any explanation of Stalin cannot be captured with traditional sense or interpretation. Continue reading →

In celebration of National Poetry Month, the State Library of Louisiana is holding the third annual “Just Listen to Yourself: The Louisiana Poet Laureate Presents Louisiana Poets.” Julie Kane, Louisiana’s poet laureate, will host the event from noon to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 10, at the State Library Seminar Center, 701 N. 4th St. Poets from … Continue reading →

1. Six Years. Harlan Coben 2. The Storyteller. Jodi Picoult 3. Alex Cross, Run. James Patterson 4. Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn 5. The Striker. Cussler/Scott 6. A Week in Winter. Maeve Binchy … Continue reading →

“The sun is not a constant beacon of light,” writes evolutionary biologist Neil Shubin. “It started its stellar life as a relatively dim star over 4.6 billion years ago and has increased in brightness ever since.” (It’s about 30 percent brighter and warmer now.) From the cooling of the universe and the nature of gravity to the introduction of water and living things, The Universe Within takes us on a journey through the last 13.7 billion years. Continue reading →

Bob Thompson’s fascination with Davy Crockett began in the family car, on a trip with his wife and two young daughters, listening to an old Burl Ives collection of folk songs — “Shoo Fly,” “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” and then a song that immediately grabbed the girls’ attention. Continue reading →

1. Alex Cross, Run. James Patterson 2. The Storyteller. Jodi Picoult 3. The Striker. Cussler/Scott 4. Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn 5. A Week in Winter. Maeve Binchy … Continue reading →

The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities has named scholar, historian, and educator William Pederson the 2013 Humanist of the Year. This and other statewide awards in the humanities will be presented at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, April 6, at Houmas House Plantation and Gardens on River Road in Darrow. Each year, the LEH honors Louisianians who … Continue reading →

In Ayana Mathis’s debut novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, she brings readers on a gripping and poignant journey into the lives of a mother and the hardships facing her children she raises through the Great Migration, through Jim Crow, the civil rights era and the ’80s. Continue reading →

If you are looking for profanity, The Average American Marriage: A Novel offers it in abundance. If you want a narrator’s undying obsession with sex and frequent graphic depictions of it, you have found it. If it’s an easy, entertaining, done-in-an-afternoon read you’re in search of, here it is. Continue reading →

Swing by Casa Azul Gifts, 232 Martin Luther King Drive in Grand Coteau, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 19, and enjoy a screening of the documentary Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle. The book, Tarzan of the Apes, was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first in a series about the title character Tarzan. Continue reading →

Best-Sellers for March 17 Continue reading →

Lisa Gardner, the master of the psychological thriller, has delivered another tour de force with Touch & Go, which exposes the raw nerves of a family imploding, and an investigator trying to escape her past. Justin Denbe and his wife, Libby, return from a night out to discover intruders in their home. They witness their 15-year-old daughter, Ashlyn, being attacked with a stun gun before they are attacked as well. Continue reading →

North and South were culturally dissimilar from the very outset of European settlement. And though it wasn’t the stain of slavery, in isolation, that precipitated the Civil War, no one with an ear to the past doubts that slavery as an idea preoccupied popular thinkers as much as it engaged political actors. Continue reading →

1. Alex Cross, Run. James Patterson 2. A Week in Winter. Maeve Binchy 3. Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn 4. Until the End of Time. Danielle Steel 5. Guilt: An Alex Delaware Novel. … Continue reading →

Charlsa Moore, an avid historian of Henry Watkins Allen, will lecture about Gov. Allen and his leadership role as Louisiana’s 17th governor and as a Confederate brigadier general in the Civil War. The Foundation for Historical Louisiana’s Heritage Lecture is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 14, in the East Room of the Old Governor’s Mansion, … Continue reading →

March is National Women’s History Month. Domingue’s book is an appropriate book to begin things. Women’s issues have driven Domingue’s writing as her fans are well aware. Reproductive rights were the underlying complication in her previous novel, The Mercy of Thin Air, set in New Orleans. Continue reading →

Asked to identify heroes of World War II, people are likely to name Audie Murphy, Joe Foss and the Doolittle Raiders. Very few have heard of Chips, Chick and Blackie Halligan. Which is a shame, even if they were, respectively, a dog, a mule and a homing pigeon. Continue reading →

This collection of stories is really a novel in nine short stories, each linked to the next sequentially in time, the passage of which is marked by the Faulkner-like change of voice from story to story. But one point of view dominates the book: Nelle Fenton, pretty and headstrong daughter of a northern family that settles in the horse country of northern Virginia. Continue reading →

Lunchtime Lagniappe, a weekly series of lectures that explores the rich culture and history of Louisiana, resumes at noon Wednesday, March 6, at the Capitol Park Museum, 660 N. Fourth St., with “Madame Legendre: Hostess to History.” Historian and genealogist Yvonne Lewis-Day will trace the life and career of Madame Legendre who ran Baton Rouge’s first five-star … Continue reading →