Here are 81 books that The Magic of Marie Laveau fans have personally recommended if you like
The Magic of Marie Laveau.
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At age 49, I traveled to Cuba to find a version of woman- and motherhood large enough to hold all I wanted to be. And it was there, among the island’s mother saints and goddesses, that I found the mirror I was looking for. In this list, I share five books that reconnect us with the spiritual mothers who might show us the way back to ourselves. From Luisah Teish’s New Orleans household magic to Gloria Naylor’s mystical Willow Bay, we meet the goddesses, conjure women, and “women who know” who shine a light on the power and multidimensionality of the feminine through the lens of spirit, faith, and identity.
Wise Women. Ancestral Worship. Charms and rituals: Thank you—to author, performer, and ritual priestess, Luisah Teish—for this reminder that “our foremothers knew things that modern science is still struggling with.”
Originally published in 1985, this eclectic mix of memoir, spiritual teachings, and practices is a delightful and accessible road map to New Orleans Voudou, which, like Jamablaya—“a spicy dish with many fine ingredients cooked together”—blends the practices of African ancestor reverence, Native American earth worship, and European Christian occultism into one tradition.
Reading this book, I find myself pulled into the mysteries of the natural and spiritual worlds, and the centuries-old traditions of the ancestors, whose voices echo through time, guiding us and blending with our own.
A refreshed edition of Jambalaya: The Natural Woman's Book of Personal Charms and Practical Rituals—updated with a note from the author sharing the changes that have occurred in the 30 years since its original publication.
"A book of startling remembrances, revelations, directives, and imperatives, filled with the mysticism, wisdom, and common sense of the African religion of the Mother. It should be read with the same open-minded love with which it was written."—Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple
Since its original publication in 1985, Jambalaya has become a classic among Women's Spirituality Educators, practitioners of traditional Africana religions, environmental…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
At age 49, I traveled to Cuba to find a version of woman- and motherhood large enough to hold all I wanted to be. And it was there, among the island’s mother saints and goddesses, that I found the mirror I was looking for. In this list, I share five books that reconnect us with the spiritual mothers who might show us the way back to ourselves. From Luisah Teish’s New Orleans household magic to Gloria Naylor’s mystical Willow Bay, we meet the goddesses, conjure women, and “women who know” who shine a light on the power and multidimensionality of the feminine through the lens of spirit, faith, and identity.
In these seventeen essays we meet the Yoruba river goddess Òsun, the mighty shapeshifter whose name means source, as in “the source of a river, a people, or of children...that which runs, seeps, flows, moves as water does.”
Here is the role model I’ve been hungering for! Not only a river and fertility goddess, Òsun is a holder and conveyor of political, economic, divinatory, maternal, natural, and therapeutic power; a larger-than-life Mother who is both spiritual and material, sweet and strong; a multi-faceted role model who shifts shape with every turn of her river. Immersed in her stories, I find myself leaning into those places where I, too, am fluid, my identity too vast to fit into any one shape or box.
Osun is a brilliant deity whose imagery and worldwide devotion demand broad and deep scholarly reflection. Contributors to the ground-breaking Africa's Ogun, edited by Sandra Barnes (Indiana University Press, 1997), explored the complex nature of Ogun, the orisa who transforms life through iron and technology. Osun across the Waters continues this exploration of Yoruba religion by documenting Osun religion. Osun presents a dynamic example of the resilience and renewed importance of traditional Yoruba images in negotiating spiritual experience, social identity, and political power in contemporary Africa and the African diaspora. The 17 contributors to Osun across the Waters delineate the…
At age 49, I traveled to Cuba to find a version of woman- and motherhood large enough to hold all I wanted to be. And it was there, among the island’s mother saints and goddesses, that I found the mirror I was looking for. In this list, I share five books that reconnect us with the spiritual mothers who might show us the way back to ourselves. From Luisah Teish’s New Orleans household magic to Gloria Naylor’s mystical Willow Bay, we meet the goddesses, conjure women, and “women who know” who shine a light on the power and multidimensionality of the feminine through the lens of spirit, faith, and identity.
What a delight to cozy up with the fictional island of this novel, an imagined liminal space on the border of Georgia and South Carolina, we are told “got spit out from the mouth of God, and when it fell to the earth it brought along an army of stars.” Even more delightful, we are told that when He tried to reach down and scoop them back up, He found Himself shaking hands with “the greatest conjure woman on earth.”
Thus we meet the “great, great, grand Mother” of Willow Springs, the archetypal first mother who could “grab a bolt of lightning in the palm of her hand; use the heat of the lightning to start the kindling going under her medicine pot,” and heal “the wounds of every creature.” I love how deeply feminist, mystical, and immersive this novel is: a page-turner I return to whenever I want to…
With a new introduction by Robert Jones, Jr, author of The New York Times bestselling novel, The Prophets
'Gloria Naylor is a brilliant word-worker and a breathtaking story-teller. Mama Day is her masterpiece' Tayari Jones
'A sweeping, ambitious, gorgeous novel - takes you by the throat and refuses to let go. Mama Day is a stone-cold masterpiece' Carmen Maria Machado
Between Georgia and South Carolina is an island you won't find on any map. Only a single wooden bridge connects it to the world. In Willow Springs people still honour their ancestors, who arrived as slaves back in the time…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
At age 49, I traveled to Cuba to find a version of woman- and motherhood large enough to hold all I wanted to be. And it was there, among the island’s mother saints and goddesses, that I found the mirror I was looking for. In this list, I share five books that reconnect us with the spiritual mothers who might show us the way back to ourselves. From Luisah Teish’s New Orleans household magic to Gloria Naylor’s mystical Willow Bay, we meet the goddesses, conjure women, and “women who know” who shine a light on the power and multidimensionality of the feminine through the lens of spirit, faith, and identity.
As someone who writes about discovering Santería as an adult, I was enchanted to read how Hernández stumbles upon its rituals through the eyes of a child. In her father’s workroom, a gray rock with cowrie shells for eyes and a mouth that sits on a clay plate filled with candies becomes the author’s enticing introduction to Santería’s gatekeeper deity, Eleggua. In the kitchen, women read cups of water that ferry messages between the living and the santos and the dead.
“There’s nothing odd about any of this, because it has always been this way,” Hernández tells us, illuminating the ways her young self navigates her identity among the wisdom and complexities of the aunties and mother who raise her, and the “women who know” they call upon to help them find their way.
The PEN Literary Award–winning author “writes with honesty, intelligence, tenderness, and love” about her Colombian-Cuban heritage and queer identity in this poignant coming-of-age memoir (Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street).
In this lyrical, coming-of-age memoir, Daisy Hernández chronicles what the women in her Cuban-Colombian family taught her about love, money, and race. Her mother warns her about envidia and men who seduce you with pastries, while one tía bemoans that her niece is turning out to be “una india” instead of an American. Another auntie instructs that when two people are close, they are bound to become…
My love of mysteries began with Nancy Drew books. As I read more mysteries over the years, I finally decided it was time for me to write my own. A setting came to me immediately—New Orleans. I fell in love with the city through the Anne Rice and Julie Smith’s books. To write my cozy mystery series, I read all kinds of books. I read them for pleasure, but to make sure the details are correct in my books, The French Quarter Mysteries. I’m able to enjoy New Orleans through my sleuth, Samantha. It’s the next best thing to being there myself.
A unique city such as New Orleans should have unique guidebooks. Fear Dat is just that.
While the book gives the usual tourist information about hotels, restaurants, shops, and tours, it has so much more. Fear Dat is full of stories of the cemeteries, Voodoo, ghosts, vampires, and more.
Whether it’s your first visit or your twentieth, this book will get you ready for a trip to the Crescent City.
Fear Dat New Orleans explores the eccentric and often macabre dark corners of America's most unique city. In addition to detailed histories of bizarre burials, ghastly murders, and the greatest concentration of haunted places in America, Fear Dat features a "bone watcher's guide" with useful directions of who's buried where, from Marie Laveau to Ruthie the Duck Girl. You'll also find where to buy the most authentic gris-gris or to get the best psychic reading.
The Huffington Post tagged Michael Murphy's first book Eat Dat, about the city's food culture, the #1 "essential" book to read before coming to New…
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.
Written by accomplished historian Carolyn Morrow Long, A New Orleans Voudou Priestess tells the true story of Voodoo queen Marie Laveau based on extensive archival research.
In telling her readers about this Creole woman of color who was deeply embedded in the culture of New Orleans in the 1800s, we learn the real story of a woman who was often glorified and denigrated by the press and by local authors who wrote many fantastical tales about her life misleading many about her character and her religion.
Legendary for an unusual combination of spiritual power, beauty, charisma, showmanship, intimidation, and shrewd business sense, Marie Leveau also was known for her kindness and charity, nursing yellow fever victims and ministering to condemned prisoners, and her devotion to the Roman Catholic Church. In separating verifiable fact from semi-truths and complete fabrication, Carolyn Morrow Long explores the unique social, political, and legal setting in which the lives of Laveau's African and European ancestors became intertwined in nineteenth-century New Orleans.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I was passionate about anthropology in the 1970s when I was in my twenties and am still passionate about anthropology in the 2020s in my seventies. Throughout the years I have expressed my passion for anthropology in university classrooms, in public lectures, and in the 16 books I have published. As my mind has matured, I understand more and more fully just how important it is to write powerfully, cogently, and accessibly about the wisdom of others. In all my books I have attempted to convey to the public this fundamental wisdom, none more so than in my latest book, Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times.
Hurston’s Mules and Men is a classic work in which the author returns to her hometown, Eatonville, Florida, in the late 1920s to conduct anthropological research.
In the work Hurston captures the complex texture of social life in a fully incorporated African American community. The result is a rich mix of character descriptions, masterfully crafted dialogues, and a collection of stories that reflect powerfully the deep knowledge and profound wisdom of Eatonville’s cast of characters.
I grew up in a Jewish home more focused on comedy than religion. I readMad Magazine, watched The Three Stooges, and listened to Allan Sherman. The idea of a bar mitzvah was a cruel surprise, sprung on me at age 10. I flunked Hebrew school, yet got accepted at Yale. I majored in a Jewish girl who later broke my heart. So I began writing my first novel. It "almost" got published—another sad story—and I took a job with an editor in NYC who specialized in paranormal non-fiction. That was the spark for The Violet Crow—and my love for comic crime fiction. A new novel, Reveille in Birdland, is scheduled for completion in 2023.
Robert Crais' private detectives, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike, inhabit the same traffic-choked freeways as Harry Bosch, but in a much brighter key. I'm drawn to Elvis' non-stop banter, which is often laugh-out-loud funny. Tough-guy Joe has a gift for understatement that makes him a perfect foil for Elvis. In Voodoo River, Elvis falls in love with Lucy Chenier. (His wiseguy courtship style is something you shouldn't try at home.) The novel's set in Louisiana, where Crais grew up. Elvis is investigating a blackmail scheme run by Milt Rossier, a wily ex-con backed up by a gun thug named Leroy; Rene, a 400-pound brain-dead monster; and a vicious snapping turtle named Luther. Elvis is not intimidated, but he wisely calls in Joe to improve the odds for the inevitable confrontation.
In a search for a young woman's past PI Elvis Cole discovers far more than he expected . . .
Hired to uncover the past of Jodi Taylor, an actress in a hit TV show, Elvis leaves his native Los Angeles to head for Louisiana in search of Jodi's biological parents.
But before he can tackle the mystery of the actress's background, he is up against a whole host of eccentrics, including a crazed Raid-spraying housewife, a Cajun thug who looks like he's been made out of spare parts, and a menacing hundred-year-old river turtle named Luther.
I have been writing and illustrating books for fifteen years, and I am passionate about the art of making picture books. I love music and dance too. While making this list, I was amazed by how different visual artists that I admire—and who have very different styles—were able to capture movement, rhythm, and energy. I was also fascinated by how the different authors crafted their stories and yet all of them managed to celebrate Black culture and resilience.
I love Gregory Christie’s artwork. His naïf style illustrations may seem crude and simple at first glance, but I think they are incredibly rhythmic and powerful.
His images pair seamlessly with the book's lyrical text, which depicts the awful hardships that enslaved people in New Orleans endured and the joy they felt on Sundays when they were free to play music, dance, and spend time together in Congo Square.
Winner of a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2016 A School Library Journal Best Book of 2016: Nonfiction Starred reviews from School Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, and The Horn Book Magazine A Junior Library Guild Selection
This poetic, nonfiction story about a little-known piece of African American history captures a human's capacity to find hope and joy in difficult circumstances and demonstrates how New Orleans' Congo Square was truly freedom's heart.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
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…
