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Dreaming New Orleans

by celesteh

This week being the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, I thought it would be timely to express my love for the city of New Orleans. After vacationing in The Big Easy, I found that my stay ended all too quickly. But until the day when I can become a permanent resident, I keep myself placated by reading all about the city and its rich history. However, there is also an abundance of fictional tales that keep New Orleans as a setting. Sure, one can always read anything by Anne Rice, but how about Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer or John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces? If you’re in the mood for a film, A Streetcar Named Desire or even Easy Rider might be good bets, too.

For some mystery stories that take place not exclusively in New Orleans but in southern Louisiana, you could check out the powerhouse writer James Lee Burke’s thriller series of Dave Robicheaux novels as well as the wildly popular Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris for some vampiric intrigue.

Don't forget to stop by the Downtown Library this Friday at 7:00 PM for a showing of Trouble the Water - the Academy Award nominated documentary about Hurricane Katrina. Information can be found here.

I’ll see you on the porch with beignets and café au lait.

Comments

Submitted by darla Staff on Tue, 08/25/2009 - 5:12pm

You should also check out Dave Egger's new book [b:1343341|Zeitoun]!!!
Amazon sums it up best:
"When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a prosperous Syrian-American and father of four, chose to stay through the storm to protect his house and contracting business. In the days after the storm, he traveled the flooded streets in a secondhand canoe, passing on supplies and helping those he could. A week later, on September 6, 2005, Zeitoun abruptly disappeared. Eggers’s riveting nonfiction book, three years in the making, explores Zeitoun’s roots in Syria, his marriage to Kathy — an American who converted to Islam — and their children, and the surreal atmosphere (in New Orleans and the United States generally) in which what happened to Abdulrahman Zeitoun was possible. Like What Is the What, Zeitoun was written in close collaboration with its subjects and involved vast research — in this case, in the United States, Spain, and Syria."

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