Here are 80 books that Dixie City Jam fans have personally recommended if you like
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A writer friend asked me, "If you could write about anything you wanted, what would that be?" I thought immediately of Sicily and then of women (and men) trying to break free from cultural definitions that have historically kept us in traditional roles of housewife, cook, and mother, or breadwinner and protector. Having choice and being able to carve one's path is paramount, a deeply held value for me, both as an individual woman and as a psychotherapist. The courage of some of my clients who have dared to follow their own paths, along with my challenge to steer my own path, were also inspirations for the books I chose.
After I visited Sicily at 22 (the same age as Mariella in the book) and stayed with relatives in Siracusa, I fell in love with Sicily (and all of Italy) and wanted to know everything I could about it, its history, its customs, architecture, food, and especially to understand the collective psyche of its people.
My grandmother was born in Sicily and never spoke English even after moving to the United States, and my uncles and father spent a good part of their childhoods in Catania, where the Sicily part of Becoming Mariella takes place. I had never before felt the deep longing of a cultural belonging, and this book, written in 1958, is one of the finest works of twentieth-century fiction (according to Daunt Books), and opened my eyes to the pride and richness of the Sicilian people and its aristocracy, their stubbornness and an understanding of how,…
The Leopard is a modern classic which tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution.
'There is a great feeling of opulence, decay, love and death about it' Rick Stein
In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi's landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them.
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
I first became aware of the 1920s through movies such as Some Like it Hot and Thoroughly Modern Millie. I was immediately attracted to what I call the “Booze, beads, and boas.” I felt a kinship with the flappers who were experiencing freedom from the restrictions of the Victorian Era and living their best lives. They were making their own rules and doing it with style! As professor of library science, I researched the history of the American public library and of women in the 1850s-1920s. Today, I write historical cozy mysteries to live out my own glamorous flapper dreams.
I love the absolutely authentic atmosphere of this book – the clothes, the music, the booze -- and the exploration of the dark side of the 1920s.
I find some of the characters sympathetic, some repellent, and some impossible to understand, just as in real life. Regardless, I feel that I really get to know them by the end of the book, even if I still don’t understand them. I can’t help but make comparisons with that time period and now, a century later. So much has changed, yet so much remains the same.
I’ll be honest that it can be a depressing read, so I have to be in the right mood for it, but when I am, nothing else will satisfy.
As the summer unfolds, Nick is drawn into Gatsby's world of luxury cars, speedboats and extravagant parties. But the more he hears about Gatsby - even from what Gatsby himself tells him - the less he seems to believe. Did he really go to Oxford University? Was Gatsby a hero in the war? Did he once kill a man? Nick recalls how he comes to know Gatsby and how he also enters the world of his cousin Daisy and her wealthy husband Tom. Does their money make them any happier? Do the stories all connect? Shall we come to know…
In 1995, I was invited to the People’s Republic of China to direct a play at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. It was the first Canadian play to be produced in China. It’s amazing what you can learn in a foreign city, with time to explore on your own, ready to soak up the energy, atmosphere, sights, and sounds. The impact is even greater when that city is on the cusp of historic change. The experience power-charged my imagination and was the spark for my first novels–a series of mysteries featuring the detective Zong Fong, Head of Special Investigations, Shanghai. City Rising and its three sequels followed after extensive research.
When it comes to historical fiction, especially one set in Asia, James Clavell is the guy to beat (or at least match).
The story of Shogun unfolds in 17th-century, feudal Japan. An undisputedly exotic setting. A British ship is wrecked on its shores, and its stranded navigator must find his way through Japan's complex cultural and political dynamics. Meanwhile there are other Europeans seeking religious influence and commercial advantage.
Perhaps best of all, the characters are monumental and include one of the strongest and most courageous women in literature since Joan of Arc.
'Clavell never puts a foot wrong . . . Get it, read it, you'll enjoy it mightily' Daily Mirror
This is James Clavell's tour-de-force; an epic saga of one Pilot-Major John Blackthorne, and his integration into the struggles and strife of feudal Japan. Both entertaining and incisive, SHOGUN is a stunningly dramatic re-creation of a very different world.
Starting with his shipwreck on this most alien of shores, the novel charts Blackthorne's rise from the status of reviled foreigner up to the hights of trusted advisor and eventually, Samurai. All as civil war looms over the fragile country.
Coyote weather is the feral, hungry season, drought-stricken, and ready to catch fire. It’s 1967, and the American culture is violently remaking itself while the country is forcibly sending its young men to fight in a deeply unpopular war.
Jerry has stubbornly made no plans for the future because he…
In 1995, I was invited to the People’s Republic of China to direct a play at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. It was the first Canadian play to be produced in China. It’s amazing what you can learn in a foreign city, with time to explore on your own, ready to soak up the energy, atmosphere, sights, and sounds. The impact is even greater when that city is on the cusp of historic change. The experience power-charged my imagination and was the spark for my first novels–a series of mysteries featuring the detective Zong Fong, Head of Special Investigations, Shanghai. City Rising and its three sequels followed after extensive research.
Read enough Cold War spy novels by John le Carré, and you can’t help but wonder, who is this gorgeous writer and how much of what he writes is grounded in historical fact. Then you read his memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, and see that le Carré (the writer’s pen name) has been trying to sort all that out himself in his books.
Meet David John Moore Cornwell (John le Carré's real name), raised by his father, Ronnie Cornwell, and schooled in the art of espionage by the British Security Service (MI5) and Intelligence Service (MI6). What you get is source material for what you’d glimpsed (and suspected) all along in A Perfect Spy, Little Drummer Girl, Smiley’s People, and many others. Betrayal goes deep.
The troubled relationship between father and son plays out over a lifetime. And as a writer, you wonder, how much of me is embedded…
"Recounted with the storytelling elan of a master raconteur - by turns dramatic and funny, charming, tart and melancholy." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
The New York Times bestselling memoir from John le Carre, the legendary author of A Legacy of Spies.
From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War, to a career as a writer that took him from war-torn Cambodia to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion to Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, le Carre has always written from the heart of modern times. In this,…
I'm a classically trained Shakespearian actor who has spent a lifetime researching Tudor and Stuart times, imbibing their language, customs, and idiosyncrasies. As an actor, I'm trained to get inside my characters' heads and dedicate myself to their intentions. Also, as an actor, I've come to relish language and recognize what makes a good phrase, paragraph, and/or book. I not only perform the Bard, but I've also taught his rhetorical stylings to countless people. I love language and admire writers who use it elegantly. They say, "Write what you know." I know Shakespeare and the Elizabethan era inside and out. One's life can be changed by a book; the ones I've recommended have changed mine.
All of James Burke's novels are my favorites. His plots constantly take you by surprise, and his characters drip with foibles and exotic passions. This book does not take place in New Orleans yet, but Mr. Burke seems to equally understand the heat, the intentions, the loneliness, and the nightmares of the Southwest border. I could not get enough of his colorful dialogue and poetical descriptions.
A powerful and unforgettable thriller from 'one of the finest American writers' GUARDIAN
Danny Boy Lorca was used to having apocalyptic visions - the beatings he'd taken in jail and the booze he drank to forget them made sure of that. But what he saw and heard that night out in the desert was more terrifying than anything even his battered spirit could have conjured. A man tortured to death. Slowly and methodically and with inhuman cruelty.
When Danny Boy tells his tale to Sheriff Hackberry Holland, Hack knows something evil has leaked over the border into his corner of…
Being from Upstate New York I went to college at Cornell University but headed off to New Orleans as soon as I could. By and by I became an instructor at Delgado Community College. Always a big fan of the city’s amazing historic cemeteries, when teaching a world architectural history class, I took the class to the Metairie Cemetery where I could show the students real examples of every style from Ancient Egyptian to Modern American. After coming to Texas State University, San Marcos (30 miles from Austin), I went back to New Orleans on sabbatical in 2013 and wrote The Cemeteries of New Orleans.
I discovered and used The World That Made New Orleans as a source for my book.
Upon opening the book, I was gleefully surprised to discover what an informative, interesting, and fun read it is. Sublette describes the French origins of the city in the early 1700s which involved wild parties, debauchery, tragic exploratory expeditions, and a massive Ponzi scheme that used Louisiana and the fictional gold mines there to defraud most every rich person in France, eventually crashing the entire French economy.
He then took me on a thrilling journey through the Spanish and early American periods to quadroon balls, Congo Square, and so many other fascinating places. I knew the city’s history was interesting, but reading The World That Made New Orleans blew me away.
Named one of the Top 10 Books of 2008 by The Times-Picayune. Winner of the 2009 Humanities Book of the Year award from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Awarded the New Orleans Gulf South Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award for 2008.
New Orleans is the most elusive of American cities. The product of the centuries-long struggle among three mighty empires--France, Spain, and England--and among their respective American colonies and enslaved African peoples, it has always seemed like a foreign port to most Americans, baffled as they are by its complex cultural inheritance.
Homeless following the death of his adoptive parents in a car crash and the subsequent loss of their farm tenancy, Seb decides to enrol as a residential student at the Asklepios Foundation, a College of Natural Medicine, boasting a sanctuary modelled on an ancient Greek healing temple. Spending a night…
I’ve loved jazz ever since I learned to play the clarinet as a child. My two great loves in life have been music and books, so it made sense to combine the two things and write novels with a link to jazz. These books are some of my favourites with a jazz theme. I promise that even if you’re not a jazz fan, these are all excellent novels, to be enjoyed with or without music playing in the background!
A young Louis Armstrong as an amateur detective – if that concept doesn’t draw you in, I’m not sure what will!
The year is 1919 and there’s a terrifying serial killer on the loose in New Orleans. This is the first installment in Celestin’s City Blues Quartet. I love all four books but The Axeman is probably my favourite because of the New Orleans vibe. You get jazz, mafia, Pinkerton detectives, crooked cops, and a taste of the macabre.
"Ray Celestin skillfully depicts the desperate revels of that idiosyncratic city and its bizarre legends in his first novel, THE AXEMAN." - The New York Times Sunday Book Review (Marilyn Stasio, Crime Columnist)
The Axeman stalks the streets of New Orleans...
In a town filled with gangsters, voodoo, and jazz trumpets sounding from the dance halls, a sense of intoxicating mystery often beckons from the back alleys. But when a serial killer roams the sultry nights, even the corrupt cops can't see the clues. That is, until a letter from the Axeman himself is published in the newspaper, proclaiming that…
Being from Upstate New York I went to college at Cornell University but headed off to New Orleans as soon as I could. By and by I became an instructor at Delgado Community College. Always a big fan of the city’s amazing historic cemeteries, when teaching a world architectural history class, I took the class to the Metairie Cemetery where I could show the students real examples of every style from Ancient Egyptian to Modern American. After coming to Texas State University, San Marcos (30 miles from Austin), I went back to New Orleans on sabbatical in 2013 and wrote The Cemeteries of New Orleans.
This book provides an intimate look at Storyville, the legal New Orleans red-light district that operated in a grid of streets nestled between St. Louis Cemeteries no. 1 and 2 near the French Quarter from 1897 to 1917.
Although the book is a bit dated (it was published in 1974) and includes a few wild and unsubstantiated stories about certain historic New Orleans personalities, such as Marie Laveau, this mostly factual volume is a fascinating and detailed portrait of the "District," as Storyville was often called, and the colorful, sometimes tragic stories of the people who lived and worked there.
A true-to-life impression of Storyville, the only legally established red light district in the US
At the turn of the twentieth-century, there were hundreds of red-light districts in the United States, ranging in size from a discreet “house” or two in or near small towns and cities to block after bawdy block of brothels in larger cities such as Chicago and San Francisco. Storyville, New Orleans: Being an Authentic, Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red Light District seeks to offer the reader a reasonably true-to-life impression of Storyville, the most famous of the large districts and the only such district…
I’ve lived in the same place for a long time—a complicated yet beautiful place that I love and love to observe. I’ve seen a lot of change, and a lot of folks come and go in my neighborhood and within the walls of my own house. Looking at a building down the street, I can see it two paint jobs ago, the moods of former owners and friends still imprinted there. I’m becoming a relative old-timer here—while the neighborhood sees repeated turnover, I dig in harder. My long track of settledness has nurtured a tendency to chronicle this humble place, to write one version of its story.
I often wonder about the generations of people who lived in my house before me, but for better or worse, that context is lost to history. Conversely, Sarah M. Broom is privy to 60 years of intimate history of her childhood home in New Orleans East.
Making a home is an act of love; sustaining one hinges on determination, work, and community. It also helps to be treated like you matter by those in power. Broom’s tribute to her tenacious mother and family, who kept their home through times of security and lack thereof, only to lose it to Hurricane Katrina, is stunning. The house still exerts a tumultuous pull on Broom and her family. The crossing threads of love and heartbreak are sewn through this vivid, haunting memoir.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION
'A major book that I suspect will come to be considered among the essential memoirs of this vexing decade' New York Times Book Review
In 1961, Sarah M. Broom's mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant - the postwar optimism seemed assured. Widowed, Ivory Mae remarried Sarah's father Simon Broom; their combined family would…
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
by
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
I was in the fourth grade when JFK was assassinated. I grew up in the late 1960s as conspiracy theories about ‘who killed Kennedy’ flourished. Jack Ruby’s murder of Oswald made me suspect the mafia played a role. After Oliver Stone’s controversial 1991 JFK film, I convinced a publisher to allow me to reexamine the assassination. I did not expect to solve the case. Halfway through my research, however, I realized there was an answer to ‘who killed Kennedy.’ It was not what I had expected. I discovered that the story of how a 24-year-old sociopath armed with a $12 rifle managed to kill the president was a far more fascinating one than I could have ever envisioned.
In a similar vein to False Witness, Litwin not only exposes the shortcomings of the Garrison investigation into the JFK murder but in the process uncovers the fraud and false information that are cited to support some of the currently popular conspiracy theories about the assassination. It is filled with new information from Litwin’s own extensive research.
Fred Litwin exposes the truth about Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney, who ‘solved’ the JFK assassination in 1967.
On the Trail of Delusion shows how Garrison persecuted an innocent gay man in order to spout his crazy conspiracy theories. There is also a touch of bribery and intimidation, the story of his attempt to charge a dead man with being a grassy knoll assassin, the former Marine he believed was a ‘second Oswald,’ several con men who turned the tables and fooled Garrison, the use of truth serum and hypnosis to recover memories, the ugly story of Oliver…
