2008 Nominations
Thank you for answering our call for nominations for the 2008 “One Book!”
So what was nominated?
Basically, everything from The Federalist Papers to The Awakening to the Bible. Or, borrowing from someone’s actual suggestion, everything between “Shakespeare and Stephen King“ (although no one nominated a work by either author).
Recurring themes included Katrina, race relations, and perseverance. Browse the list to see what else was on the mind of Greater New Orleans in 2008.
The four books that were suggested most were, in alphabetical order: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, Chummy’s Spirit by Hal Clark, The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, and The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
They are placed alphabetically with the other suggestions in the list below. The description of each book is the publisher’s description, when available.
This list is informational and not an endorsement of any particular work. However, if something piques your interest, we encourage you to research the book further and decide for yourself if you would like to read it.
Your Suggestions in Alphabetical Order
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank; 352 pp
The classic apocalyptic novel that stunned the world.
All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren; 661 pp
Set in the 1930s, this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel traces the rise and fall of Willie Stark, who resembles the real-life Huey “Kingfish” Long of Louisiana. Stark begins his political career as an idealistic man of the people but soon becomes corrupted by success. Generally considered the finest novel ever written on American politics, All the King’s Men is a literary classic.
And God Looked Away: A Katrina Journal by Michael Bevis, Jr.; 160 pp
A storm journal describing the events that transpired in the New Orleans region during Hurricane Katrina. A simple effort to remember history, and reflect an average person’s experience in the storm and the aftermath. With an introduction by the author, a small selection of pictures, and epilogues.
Anyway: The Paradoxical Commandments by Kent M. Keith; 120 pp
These ten timeless principles were first articulated by the author when he was a student at Harvard in the nineteen sixties. Since then, they’ve traveled around the world and back again-usually with no attribution at all. They’ve been cited as an anonymous poem on more than eighty websites; appropriated as song lyrics; quoted in books and by business leaders; circulated by organizations from the Boy Scouts to the Special Olympics; and tacked to the wall of Mother Teresa’s children’s home in Calcutta.
It was upon learning about this last appearance that Kent Keith was moved to put his commandments, the philosophy behind them, and the stories that bring them to life into this modern credo for living well, being happy, and doing good anyway.
Apollo 13 by Jim Lovell, Jeffrey Kluger; 432 pp
A timeless tribute to the enduring American spirit, Apollo 13 tells the story of America’s fifth mission to the moon, a mission that nearly ended in catastrophe in April 1970. Only fifty-five hours into the flight, disaster struck for Jim Lovell and two other astronauts after an explosion left them with a rapidly declining supply of oxygen and power. Lovell and Kluger vividly chronicle how the men were forced to abandon the main ship for the lunar module, a tiny craft designed to keep two men alive for only two days. At home, a nation watched the desperate efforts of Mission Control to bring the crew back in what many consider NASA’s finest hour.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand; 1088 pp
The astounding story of a man that said that he would stop the motor of the world-and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged is unlike any other book you have ever read.
The Awakening by Kate Chopin; 303 pp
Novelist and short story writer Kate Chopin (1851-1904) was the first American woman to deal with women’s roles as wives and mothers. The Awakening (1899), her most famous novel, concerns a woman, dissatisfied with her indifferent husband, who gives in to her desire for other men and commits adultery. This is a searing depiction of the religious and social pressures brought to bear on women who transgress restrictive Victorian codes of behavior.
Be Good To Your Money by Lisa Frye; 112 pp
This new and informative book details easy-to-implement financial strategies to benefit anyone, at any income level. It clearly and concisely explains how to manage your money so that it becomes a profit source. It shares with you a millionaire lifestyle that doesn’t require you to be a millionaire. Discover the author’s little secrets of success that amount to great financial rewards. This unprecedented peek into the author’s dynamic and personal journey from financial disaster to financial freedom, is filled with a wealth of savvy business smarts and financial wits. She injects from her personal experience as an educator, real estate agent, insurance broker, entrepreneur, and investor to write on diverse subjects as investing, starting a successful business, giving, getting control of your finances, and much, much more.
Beach Music by Pat Conroy; 816 pp
Pat Conroy, America’s preeminent storyteller, delivers a sweeping novel of lyric intensity and searing truth–the story of Jack McCall, an American expatriate in Rome, scarred by tragedy and betrayal. His desperate desire to find peace after his wife’s suicide draws him into a painful, intimate search for the one haunting secret in his family’s past that can heal his anguished heart.
Spanning three generations and two continents, from the contemporary ruins of the American South to the ancient ruins of Rome, from the unutterable horrors of the Holocaust to the lingering trauma of Vietnam, Beach Music sings with life’s pain and glory. It is another masterpiece in Pat Conroy’s legendary list of beloved novels.
The Bible
The Bone People by Keri Hulme; 450 pp
Integrating both Maori myth and New Zealand reality, The Bone People became the most successful novel in New Zealand publishing history when it appeared in 1984. Set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand, a harsh environment, the novel chronicles the complicated relationships between three emotional outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage. Kerewin Holmes is a painter and a loner, convinced that “to care for anything is to invite disaster.” Her isolation is disrupted one day when a six-year-old mute boy, Simon, breaks into her house. The sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck, Simon has been adopted by a widower Maori factory worker, Joe Gillayley, who is both tender and horribly brutal toward the boy. Through shifting points of view, the novel reveals each character’s thoughts and feelings as they struggle with the desire to connect and the fear of attachment.
Compared to the works of James Joyce in its use of indigenous language and portrayal of consciousness, The Bone People captures the soul of New Zealand as it continues to astonish and enrich readers around the world.
Buried in Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America by Elliot Jaspin; 352 pp
“Leave now, or die!” Those words-or ones just as ominous-have echoed through the past hundred years of American history, heralding a very unnatural disaster-a wave of racial cleansing that wiped out or drove away black populations from counties across the nation.
While we have long known about horrific episodes of lynching in the South, this story of racial cleansing has remained almost entirely unknown. These expulsions, always swift and often violent, were extraordinarily widespread in the period between Reconstruction and the Depression era. In the heart of the Midwest and the Deep South, whites rose up in rage, fear, and resentment to lash out at local blacks. They burned and killed indiscriminately, sweeping entire counties clear of blacks to make them racially “pure.” Many of these counties remain virtually all-white to this day. In Buried in the Bitter Waters, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Elliot Jaspin exposes a deeply shameful chapter in the nation’s history-and one that continues to shape the geography of race in America.
The Catcher Was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg by Nicholas Dawidoff; 453 pp
The only Major League ballplayer whose baseball card is on display at the headquarters of the CIA, Moe Berg has the singular distinction of having both a 15-year career as a catcher for such teams as the New York Robins and the Chicago White Sox and that of a spy for the OSS during World War II. Here, Dawidoff provides “a careful and sympathetic biography” (Chicago Sun-Times) of this enigmatic man.
The Chalk Cross by Berthe Amoss; 160 pp
Stephanie Martin finds herself transported to 19th-century New Orleans, where her life intertwines with that of Sidonie Laveau, daughter of the Voodoo Queen.
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt by Anne Rice; 350 pp
Having completed the two cycles of legend to which she has devoted her career so far, Anne Rice gives us now her most ambitious and courageous book, a novel about the early years of CHRIST THE LORD, based on the Gospels and on the most respected New Testament scholarship. The book’s power derives from the passion its author brings to the writing and the way in which she summons up the voice, the presence, the words of Jesus who tells the story.
Chummy’s Spirit by Hal Clark; 256 pp
Chummy’s Spirit tells the inspirational story of Cordelia “Chummy” Johnson, who learns that the remains of her son, James, have been found in Vietnam 32 years after he was reported missing in action. Chummy has never left Louisiana, but is determined to visit the site where her son’s remains were located. This long-awaited revelation also encourages her to finally inquire about the sketchy details surrounding the death of her husband, who was murdered in a New Orleans brothel ten years after James’ disappearance.
Despite Chummy’s amazing faith and extraordinary psychological resources, and the support of both her church community and other women who have experienced their own tragic losses, her hopes of visiting Vietnam are constantly challenged by her violent, drug-infested New Orleans neighborhood and non-supportive nephew, Bryan, who believes she’s an unrealistic old lady. Bryan reluctantly travels with Chummy to Vietnam. There, Mr. Bao Tin, a mysterious, ex-North Vietnamese Army officer, escorts them to Cu Chi, Tay Ninh and Nha Trang, Vietnam. In addition to seeing where James’ remains were found, Chummy and Bryan meet the Vietnamese woman that James had planned to marry.
The Church of the Second Chance: A Faith-based Approach to Prison Reform by Jens Soering; 356 pp
When we draw inspiration from “the great cloud of witnesses” to the Christian faith (Hebrews 12:1), we often forget that many of those witnesses were people we might shun and condemn if we met them today: namely, convicts and criminals. In his fourth book, Jens Soering demonstrates that, despite committing or abetting theft, murder, and even terrorism, figures like Adam and Eve, Samson, and Paul were raised to places of honor in what we might call the Church of the Second Chance. In fact, the stories of these biblical outlaws contain the clues to solving a social crisis that has been building for over thirty years: the problem of America’s prisons.
Today, criminal justice experts and legislators are struggling to fix the public health and safety disasters resulting from mass incarceration in the United States. The Church of the Second Chance explains how victims, offenders, and society at large can heal this national wound through the careful, considered, and Christian application of the same key that free Moses, David, and others to do great things after they broke the law. Each chapter begins with a fruitful Bible study, goes on to examine a crucial problem besetting our jails and penitentiaries, and ends with an interview that demonstrates how people of faith are working today, in and out of prison, to apply God’s word to our own lives and times.
City of Refuge by Tom Piazza; 416 pp
In August 2005, SJ Williams, a carpenter who has lived the Lower Ninth Ward all his life, is headed for a confrontation with his young nephew Wesley, who has just been arrested for beating up his girlfriend. SJ’s older sister Lucy, Wesley’s mother, is a soulful mess beloved by everyone, but she has been unable to corral her son, and SJ fears he is about to be lost for good.
Meanwhile, across town, Craig Donaldson, a Midwestern transplant and the editor of the city’s (fictitious) weekly newspaper, is facing deepening cracks in his own family. Craig’s love for New Orleans music and culture brought them to the city, but his wife Alice’s alarm at the city’s crime, poverty, and bad schools has become an ever-widening wedge between her and Craig, and their two young children Annie and Malcolm.
When the storm breaks, and the levee with it, SJ’s home is flooded and his family scattered – Lucy to the Superdome and then to Missouri, Wesley to upstate New York, and SJ to Texas, where he struggles to locate, and reunite with, Lucy and Wesley. The Donaldsons, too, find their family strained to breaking by the storm: Alice persuades Craig to evacuate, and they flee—first to Jackson, Mississippi, and then finally to Alice’s family in Chicago. After the storm, Craig is determined to return, but he soon realizes that he may have to choose between the city he loves or the family he hoped to raise there.
Reaching across America—from the neighborhoods of New Orleans to Houston, Chicago, and elsewhere—City of Refuge explores this turning point in American culture. Like John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, it sounds complex chords of race, class, culture, and regional identity, but always through the double helix of these two families’ lives. Piazza’s characters will live in readers’ minds and hearts, and their encounter with the storm will confront us all with raw truths about our nation and ourselves. Rich with emotional insight and unforgettable scenes, it will challenge, and deeply move, every reader.
Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje; 160 pp
Bringing to life the fabulous, colorful panorama of New Orleans in the first flush of the jazz era, this book tells the story of Buddy Bolden, the first of the great trumpet players—some say the originator of jazz—who was, in any case, the genius, the guiding spirit, and the king of that time and place.
In this fictionalized meditation, Bolden, an unrecorded father of Jazz, remains throughout a tantalizingly ungraspable phantom, the central mysteries of his life, his art, and his madness remaining felt but never quite pinned down. Ondaatje’s prose is at times startlingly lyrical, and as he chases Bolden through documents and scenes, the novel partakes of the very best sort of modern detective novel—one where the enigma is never resolved, but allowed to manifest in its fullness. Though more ‘experimental’ in form than either The English Patient or In the Skin of a Lion, it is a fitting addition to the renowned Ondaatje oeuvre.
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank; 304 pp
More than fifty years after its first publication, Doubleday’s definitive edition of Anne Frank’s famous diary generated an extraordinary amount of excitement when it was published in early 1995. Enthusiastically received by critics and readers alike, it reigned for nine weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and will remain for all time the version that millions of readers will cherish. In a handsome package with flaps, rough front, and printed endpapers, this Anchor trade paperback will be the perfect gift for anyone who seeks insight into the indestructible nature of the human spirit.
Digging up America by Frank C. Hibben; 239 pp
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra; 1072 pp
Widely regarded as the world’s first modern novel, Don Quixote chronicles the famous picaresque adventures of the noble knight-errant Don Quixote de la Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they wend their way across sixteenth-century Spain. Milan Kundera calls Cervantes “the founder of the Modern Era and Lionel Trilling “observes that it can be said that all prose fiction is a variation on the theme of Don Quixote.”
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell; 228 pp
This unusual fictional account, in good part autobiographical, narrates without self-pity and often with humor the adventures of a penniless British writer among the down-and-out of two great cities. In the tales of both cities we learn some sobering Orwellian truths about poverty and society.
Dr. Mary’s Monkey by Edward T. Haslam; 374 pp
The 1964 murder of a nationally known cancer researcher sets the stage for this gripping exposé of medical professionals enmeshed in covert government operations over the course of three decades. Following a trail of police records, FBI files, cancer statistics, and medical journals, this revealing book presents evidence of a web of medical secret-keeping that began with the handling of evidence in the JFK assassination and continued apace, sweeping doctors into coverups of cancer outbreaks, contaminated polio vaccine, the arrival of the AIDS virus, and biological weapon research using infected monkeys.
The Emerald Lizard: A Neal Rafferty New Orleans Mystery by Chris Wiltz; 260 pp
Arson. Old Lovers. Murder in New Orleans. When an ex-girlfriend calls detective Neal Rafferty for help, he begins a dark journey of revenge that takes him from sleazy bars to pool rooms to a picturesque fishing community down the Mississippi River as he tracks her killer.
The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay; 551 pp
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay’s brilliant and controversial collection of essays and articles that define and explain the ideals upon which the United States of America was founded.
The Fire This Time by Randall Kenan; 160 pp
Now, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, with a new generation of Americans confronting what Baldwin called our “racial nightmare,” best-selling author Randall Kenan asks: How far have we come?
Kenan notes that despite dramatic advances, new issues have combined with old to bedevil us. The religion so key in the sixties-both Christian and Muslim-has become more dominant and intolerant. The government and courts have shifted to the right. Hip-hop has replaced the stirring music so vital to the sixties movement. Meanwhile, African Americans remain impoverished in record numbers.
Like Baldwin, Kenan is acclaimed for both his fiction and nonfiction, which includes a biography of Baldwin and numerous essays on the issues that concerned him-such as class, religion, being a gay African American, and the failing perception that America has conquered racism. The shocking revelations of New Orleans confirmed a shameful truth. Randall Kenan is the perfect writer to declare that truth, and seek its transcendence, in this impassioned book.
Geographies of New Orleans: Urban Fabrics Before the Storm by Richard Campanella; 433 pp
The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley; 768 pp
In The Great Deluge, bestselling author Douglas Brinkley, a New Orleans resident and professor of history at Tulane University, rips the story of Katrina apart and relates what the category 3 hurricane was like from every point of view. The book finds the true heroes–such as Coast Guard officer Jimmy Duckworth, who oversaw the quick-thinking, lifesaving rescue efforts during the crucial first days of the crisis. And Tony Zumbado, the hurricane jock, who, in his role as an NBC videographer, first broke the stories of the anarchy at the convention center and the deaths at Memorial Hospital.
Throughout the book, Brinkley lets the Katrina survivors tell their own stories, masterfully allowing them to record the nightmare that was Katrina. The Great Deluge investigates the failure of government at each level and breaks important new stories. Packed with interviews and original research, it traces the character flaws, inexperience, and ulterior motives that allowed the Katrina disaster to turn the Gulf Coast into a scene from a war movie or a third-world documentary.
In the Land of Dreamy Dreams by Ellen Gilchrist; 184 pp
In the Land of Dreamy Dreams is Ellen Gilchrist’s fabled first collection of stories, the book that won her acclaim in 1981 and to which each of her subsequent works has been compared. Peopled largely with young southern females who chafe against the restrictions of their upper-class lives, these stories convey the humor and tragedy to be found wherever retreat into imagination is preferred over reality. Introduced here are Nora Jane Whittington, Rhoda Manning, and other recurring Gilchrist characters beloved for their failures, tenacity, and all-too-human hope in the face of frustrated love.
Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson; 336 pp
September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange deep-sea swells and peculiar winds that greeted the city that morning. Mere hours later, Galveston found itself submerged in a monster hurricane that completely destroyed the town and killed over six thousand people in what remains the greatest natural disaster in American history–and Isaac Cline found himself the victim of a devestating personal tragedy.
Using Cline’s own telegrams, letters, and reports, the testimony of scores of survivors, and our latest understanding of the science of hurricanes, Erik Larson builds a chronicle of one man’s heroic struggle and fatal miscalculation in the face of a storm of unimaginable magnitude. Riveting, powerful, and unbearably suspenseful, Isaac’s Storm is the story of what can happen when human arrogance meets the great uncontrollable force of nature.
The Jonkheer’s Wife by John Landrum; 304 pp
What kind of people wore Wehrmacht uniforms when Germany swept across Europe in 1940? What did they think they were fighting for? What was the experience of the exiled defenders of an invaded country, waiting years for a chance to reclaim their conquered homelands? What was the experience of those left behind, living under the Nazi occupation with no idea when liberation might come?
These are the questions that first-time novelist John F. Landrum explores in the characters of Erwin Schell, a German war hero who opens a recruiting center in a country estate in conquered Holland; of Willem Vaubin van Dordrect, a surgeon and captain in the Dutch Army Reserve who evacuates with the government to England; and of his talented wife Sophia, who stays behind in their occupied home with their two young children.
The Joy of Y’at Catholicism by Earl J. Higgins; 144 pp
New Orleans culture is a fusion of secular and holy. From the earliest days of the community founded on the banks of the Mississippi River, the Catholic faith has been an influence on, and inspiration for, daily life. To be sure, religious rites such as weddings, funerals, and feast day festivals transpire elsewhere in the country. In New Orleans, however, they are celebrated with a zeal and verve that speaks to the uniqueness of the community.
Earl Higgins amuses us with those quirky, sometimes paradoxical, customs that define modern New Orleans life. He humorously explains why the answer to the question “Where did you go to high school?” is a better identifying characteristic of a New Orleanian than a thumbprint. What’s in a name? Many New Orleans streets and one local bayou bear the names of Catholic saints. Louisiana’s civil districts are parishes, not counties, bearing testimony to the strong congregational life of the region’s founding fathers.
The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau; 320 pp
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1965, The Keepers of the House is Shirley Ann Grau’s masterwork, a many-layered indictment of racism and rage that is as terrifying as it is wise. Entrenched on the same land since the early 1800s, the Howlands have, for seven generations, been pillars of their Southern community. Extraordinary family lore has been passed down to Abigail Howland, but not all of it. When shocking facts come to light about her late grandfather William’s relationship with Margaret Carmichael, a black housekeeper, the community is outraged, and quickly gathers to vent its fury on Abigail. Alone in the house the Howlands built, she is at once shaken by those who have betrayed her, and determined to punish the town that has persecuted her and her kin. Morally intricate, graceful and suspenseful, The Keepers of the House has become a modern classic.
The Known World by Edward P. Jones; 432 pp
One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, The Known World is a daring and ambitious work by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones. The Known World tells the story of Henry Townsend, a black farmer and former slave who falls under the tutelage of William Robbins, the most powerful man in Manchester County, Virginia. Making certain he never circumvents the law, Townsend runs his affairs with unusual discipline. But when death takes him unexpectedly, his widow, Caldonia, can’t uphold the estate’s order, and chaos ensues. Jones has woven a footnote of history into an epic that takes an unflinching look at slavery in all its moral complexities.
The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant; 288 pp
Set on the high ground at the heart of Cape Ann, the village of Dogtown is peopled by widows, orphans, spinsters, scoundrels, whores, free Africans, and “witches.” Among the inhabitants of this hamlet are Black Ruth, who dresses as a man and works as a stonemason; Mrs. Stanley, an imperious madam whose grandson, Sammy, comes of age in her brothel; Oliver Younger, who survives a miserable childhood at the hands of his aunt; and Cornelius Finson, a freed slave. At the center of it all is Judy Rhines, a fiercely independent soul, deeply lonely, who nonetheless builds a life for herself against all imaginable odds. Rendered in stunning, haunting detail, with Diamant’s keen ear for language and profound compassion for her characters, The Last Days of Dogtown is an extraordinary retelling of a long-forgotten chapter of early American life.
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch & Jeffery Zaslow; 224 pp
A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?
When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—”Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.
Life in the French Quarter by Andrea Lynn
(From the prologue) If I had never gone in there, my experiences would have been entirely different, and I probably wouldn’t have stayed in the Quarter as long as I did. I certainly didn’t intend to. A lot of people do that: They go to New Orleans for Super Bowl or Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest or whatever, but when it comes time to leave, they don’t. They get caught up in the lights, the sounds, the smells, the flavors, and they stay. That’s what happened to me when I walked into that blues club—that was my spider web. That’s where all my entanglements began.
Allegedly, it was the former stomping grounds of Mark Twain, Jean-Pierre Lafitte, Thomas Jefferson, and a bunch of other famous dead guys. I walked the same streets, leaned against some of the same walls, and possibly even breathed in some of the same dust that they had. I never saw any ghosts, but I had some strange dreams, and I met a lot of interesting people.
If the bricks and the cobwebs could talk, they’d have a lot of interesting stories, I’m sure. Mine is just one.
Life in the Wake: Fiction from Post-Katrina New Orleans by NOLAFugees.com; 276 pp
Featuring the work of prominent New Orleans literary personalities such as: Amanda Anderson, Jason Berry, Berman Black, Andrea Boll, Justin Burnell, Tara Jill Ciccarone, Lucas Diaz-Medina, Joel Farrelly, Ken Foster, Patty Friedmann, Kelly Gartman, Anne Gisleson, Dana Harrison-Tidwell, Sarah K. Inman, Leonard Earl Johnson, Karissa Kary, Jennifer Kuchta, Kris Lackey, Bill Lavender, Bill Loehfelm, Ed Skoog, Katie Walenter.
Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy; 416 pp
Dr. Tom More has created a stethoscope of the human spirit. With it, he embarks on an unforgettable odyssey to cure mankind’s spiritual flu. This novel confronts both the value of life and its susceptibility to chance and ruin.
Loving Donovan by Bernice McFadden; 240 pp
Despite being born to a broken-hearted mother and a faithless father, Campbell still believes in the power of love…if she can ever find it. Living in the same neighborhood, but unknown to Campbell until a chance meeting brings them together, is Donovan, the “little man” of a shattered home—a family torn apart by anger and bitterness. In the face of these daunting obstacles, Donovan dreams of someday marrying, raising a family, and playing for the NBA. But, deep inside Campbell and Donovan live the histories that have shaped their lives. What they discover—together and apart—forms the basis of this compelling, sensual, and surprising novel.
Margaret, Friend of Orphans by Mary Lou Widmer; 180 pp
Margaret Haughery lost everyone she ever loved, but dedicated her life to the service of others. Unable either to read or write, this Irish immigrant nevertheless possessed an extraordinary business acumen that was only surpassed by her generosity. An orphan herself, Margaret Haughery donated everything she earned– an estimated half-million dollars– to the orphans and the poor.
In nineteenth-century New Orleans, Margaret Haughery proved that one person can make a difference, that with faith, anything is possible. Strengthened by her Roman Catholic faith, she overcame tremendous personal tragedy to live an extremely humble, generous, and rewarding life of service to others.
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck; 288 pp
World-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck, in decades of research on achievement and success, has discovered a truly groundbreaking idea–the power of our mindset. Dweck explains why it’s not just our abilities and talent that bring us success–but whether we approach them with a fixed or growth mindset. She makes clear why praising intelligence and ability doesn’t foster self-esteem and lead to accomplishment, but may actually jeopardize success. With the right mindset, we can motivate our kids and help them to raise their grades, as well as reach our own goals–personal and professional. Dweck reveals what all great parents, teachers, CEOs, and athletes already know: how a simple idea about the brain can create a love of learning and a resilience that is the basis of great accomplishment in every area.
The Moon in the Mango Tree by Pamela Ewen; 480 pp
Set in Siam and Europe during the 1920s, a glittering decade of change, The Moon in the Mango Tree is based upon the true story of Barbara Bond, a beautiful young opera singer from Philadelphia who is forced to choose between her fierce desire for independence—a desire to create something of her own to give purpose and meaning to her life—and a deep abiding love for her faithful missionary husband whose work creates a gap between them. But when you choose between two things you love, must one be lost forever?
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy; 256 pp
Binx Bolling is s small-time stockbroker who lives quietly in suburban New Orleans, pursuing an interest in the movies, affairs with his secretaries, and living out his days. But soon he finds himself on a “search” for something more important, something that will measure and mark and hold his life forever against the passage of time. And one fateful Mardi Gras week, he finds it in a way, and with a woman, he would never have expected….
Murder in the Rue Chartres: A Chanse MacLeod Mystery by Greg Herren; 258 pp
Murder hits the Big Easy. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Chanse MacLeod returns to a different, shattered New Orleans in an attempt to rebuild his own life and face his own future. When he discovers that his last client before the storm was murdered the very night she hired him to find her long-missing father, he is drawn into a web of intrigue and evil that surrounds the Verlaine family.
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, Ralph Manheim, Roswitha Quadflieg; 444 pp
Small and insignificant Bastian Balthazar Bux is nobody’s idea of a hero, least of all his own. Then, through the pages of an ancient, mysterious book, he discovers the enchanted world of Fantastica, and only Bastian himself can save the fairy people who live there.
New Orleans After the Promises: Poverty, Citizenship, and the Search for the Great Society by Kent Germany; 460 pp
In the 1960s and 1970s, New Orleans experienced one of the greatest transformations in its history. Its people replaced Jim Crow, fought a War on Poverty, and emerged with glittering skyscrapers, professional football, and a building so large it had to be called the Superdome. New Orleans after the Promises explores how, at a time when liberalism seemed to be on the wane nationally, the city’s black and white citizens cautiously partnered with each other and with the federal government to expand liberalism in the South. While many wonder now what kind of city will emerge after the devastation of Katrina, New Orleans after the Promises offers a detailed portrait of the complex city that developed after its last epic reconstruction.
New Orleans Noir by Julie Smith (Editor); 270 pp
Brand-new stories by: Thomas Adcock, Ace Atkins, Patty Friedmann, David Fulmer, Barbara Hambly, Greg Herren, Laura Lippman, Tim McLoughlin, James Nolan, Ted O’Brien, Eric Overmyer, Jeri Cain Rossi, Maureen Tan, Jervey Tervalon, Olympia Vernon, Christine Wiltz, Kalamu Ya Salaam, and Julie Smith.
Nigg*r by Dick Gregory; 224 pp (Gregory is an African American author, and we absolutely respect his right to title his book; the title is edited, however, to avoid any potential misunderstanding)
Published in 1964, the autobiography of comedian Dick Gregory is by turns funny, poignant, and thought-provoking.
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All: A Novel by Allan Gurganus; 736 pp
Allan Gurganus’s Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All became an instant classic upon its publication. Critics and readers alike fell in love with the voice of ninety-nine-year-old Lucy Marsden, one of the most entertaining and loquacious heoines in American literature.
Lucy married at the turn of the last century, when she was fifteen and her husband was fifty. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the “War for Southern Independence”, Lucy became a “veteran of the veteran” with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood. Her story encompasses everything from the tragic death of a Confederate boy soldier to the feisty narrator’s daily battles in the Home–complete with visits from a mohawk-coiffed candy-striper. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All is proof that brilliant, emotional storytelling remains at the heart of great fiction.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan; 450 pp
A New York Times bestseller that has changed the way readers view the ecology of eating, this revolutionary book by award winner Michael Pollan asks the seemingly simple question: What should we have for dinner? Tracing from source to table each of the food chains that sustain us – whether industrial or organic, alternative or processed – he develops a portrait of the American way of eating. The result is a sweeping, surprising exploration of the hungers that have shaped our evolution, and of the profound implications our food choices have for the health of our species and the future of our planet.
Passing Unseen: Stories from New Domangue by Lucas Díaz-Medina; 164 pp
I settled into this strange place, it seemed, as much as Lorenzo did, almost immediately that first summer. We quickly grew accustomed to our new home. We had constant running water and electricity, and we had a color television that could pick up twelve channels, and even had our very own bedroom, which we shared with bunk beds. We lived on a quiet street in New Domangue where there weren’t too many other people like us, but this didn’t bother Lorenzo and me because we had each other wherever we went. Father, who often spoke about New Domangue being our new home in the same breath that he reminded us of Santo Domingo, would sometimes point to the things in our home and say that one day we will have these things back in La República. As soon as the country gets better, he would say, we will go back and live like wealthy people. But the old world back home disappeared to Lorenzo and me very quickly, and the old neighborhood and our old friends faded into sketchy snapshots that we barely bothered to look over. We were busy exploring every new discovery that came our way…
Poboy: A Nettie Dunbar Mystery by Alice McDaniel; 217 pp
The last thing practical, no-nonsense 36-year-old New Orleans schoolteacher Nettie Dunbar expects when she gives fourth-grader Anthony detention is having the business end of a gun jammed into her face. But that’s just one surprise that awaits Nettie when she discovers he’d been living on his own in the small shotgun unaware that his mama was lying dead in the shed out back.
With daughter Abby away for spring break and skeptical that the young detective assigned to the case will follow through, Nettie decides to do some snooping of her own, though she has no idea what she’s doing-or what she’s getting into. No matter. This isn’t the first time she’s had to go it alone, thanks to her snake of an ex-husband and the jaded opinion that men should be seen and not held-despite Lieutenant Gil McManus’s efforts. Determined not to let a little thing like a death threat stop her, and with only her instincts to guide her, Nettie stumbles her way through a maze of lies and secrets from the dismal housing projects to the tawdry clip joints of Bourbon Street.
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America by John Barry; 528 pp
An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known — the Mississippi flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of nearly one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thousands of blacks north, and transformed American society and politics forever.
The Samurai’s Wife: A Novel by Laura Joh Rowland; 352 pp
Far from the Shogun’s court at Edo, Most Honorable Investigator Sano Ichiro begins the most challenging case of his career. Upon the insistence of his strong-willed and beautiful wife Reiko, Sano arrives with her at the emperor’s palace to unmask the murderer–who possesses the secret of kiai, “the spirit city,” a powerful scream that can kill instantly. A high Kyoto official is the victim. Treading carefully through a web of spies, political intrigue, forbidden passions, and intricate plots, Sano and Reiko must struggle to stay ahead of the palace storm–and outwit a cunning killer. But as they soon discover, solving the case means more than their survival. For if they fail, Japan could be consumed in the bloodiest war it has ever seen…
A legendary land comes alive in this compelling murder mystery set in seventeenth-century Japan. Filled with finely drawn characters and suspenseful plot twists, The Samurai’s Wife is a novel as complex, vivid, and artful as the glorious, lost world it portrays.
Sandrine’s Letter to Tomorrow by Dedra Johnson; 220 pp
Despite being a straight-A student and voracious reader, eight-year old Sandrine Miller is treated as little more than a servant by her mother, who forces Sandrine to clean house, do chores and take care of her younger half sister, Yolanda. On top of the despair of her life at home, Sandrine must confront growing up against the harshness of life in 1970s-era New Orleans, where men in cars follow her home from school and she is ostracized because she is a light-skinned black girl. The only refuge Sandrine has against her bleak world is spending summers with her beloved grandmother, Mamalita. After Mamalita’s death, Sandrine realizes that she must escape from her mother, from New Orleans, from everything she has known, if she is to have any kind of future.
Saving the World by Julia Alvarez; 400 pp
Alma, the narrator of Saving the World, discovers a small historical footnote while doing research for a novel: In 1803, a Spanish doctor crossed the Atlantic with twenty-two orphan boys—live carriers of the smallpox vaccine—to inoculate the population of Spain’s American colonies. Accompanying them on the two-year voyage was a mysterious woman, Isabel Sendales y Gómez, the rectoress of the orphanage. Captivated by Isabe’’s courage, Alma decides to tell the grueling story of their journey.
Meanwhile, Alma’s husband, working with an organization committed to eradicating AIDS in developing countries, travels to the Dominican Republic. When his life is threatened, it is Isabel’s strength and resolve that arouse Alma’s unexpectedly heroic action. This novel within a novel presents the radiant stories of two women swept up in campaigns against the scourges of their day.
Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand; 480 pp
Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. But his success was a surprise to the racing establishment, which had written off the crooked-legged racehorse with the sad tail. Three men changed Seabiscuit’s fortunes:
Charles Howard was a onetime bicycle repairman who introduced the automobile to the western United States and became an overnight millionaire. When he needed a trainer for his new racehorses, he hired Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from the Colorado plains. Smith urged Howard to buy Seabiscuit for a bargain-basement price, then hired as his jockey Red Pollard, a failed boxer who was blind in one eye, half-crippled, and prone to quoting passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Over four years, these unlikely partners survived a phenomenal run of bad fortune, conspiracy, and severe injury to transform Seabiscuit from a neurotic, pathologically indolent also-ran into an American sports icon. Author Laura Hillenbrand brilliantly re-creates a universal underdog story, one that proves life is a horse race.
Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race, and Public Policy by Manning Marable; Kristen Clarke; 336 pp
Hurricane Katrina of August-September 2005, one of the most destructive natural disasters in U.S. history, dramatically illustrated the continuing racial and class inequalities of America. In this powerful reader, Seeking Higher Ground, prominent scholars and writers examine the racial impact of the disaster and the failure of governmental, corporate and private agencies to respond to the plight of the New Orleans black community. Contributing authors include Julianne Malveaux, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Ronald Walters, Chester Hartman, Gregory D. Squires, Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Alan Stein, and Gene Preuss. This reader is the second volume of the Souls Critical Black Studies Series, edited by Manning Marable, and produced by the institute for Research in African-American Studies of Columbia University.
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein; 720 pp
The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global “free market” has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq. In her groundbreaking reporting over the past few years, Naomi Klein introduced the term “disaster capitalism.” Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic “shock treatment,” losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers.
The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman’s free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement’s peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq.
At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.
Side Effects: A New Orleans Love Story by Patty Friedmann; 298 pp
N.O. Drugstore is located at the improbable intersection of South Claiborne Avenue and South Carrollton Avenue in New Orleans. Its idiosyncratic clientele draws as much from mostly poor-black Pigeontown as it does from the mostly rich-white University section. And no one knows this better than the three people who man the pharmacy on even days of the month. As different in style and temperament as their customers, Luciana Jambon, Lennon Israel, and Vendetta Greene are the protagonists of this story. Told in third person from their alternating points of view, Side Effects plays out their respective family feuds, usually somewhere between the Seasonal Specials and the Depends aisles. Corralled as they are with one another twelve hours a day, romance and splendid friendship blossom among Luciana, Lennon, and Vendetta, because it’s really only a low counter that separates them from everyone else.
Slummy Mummy by Fiona Neill; 337 pp
Lucy Sweeney has three sons, a husband on a short fuse, and a tendency toward domestic disaster. Lucy is living in a constant state of emergency, and the white lies to cover up the trail of “Slummy Mummy” destruction are escalating. When she begins a flirtation with Sexy Domesticated Dad, disaster looms, making it hard for her to remember why she exchanged her career and sanity for this. Pitch-perfect and satisfyingly smart, Slummy Mummy is a hilarious novel about the dilemmas of modern marriage and motherhood for those who never discovered their domestic goddess within.
Standing at the Scratch Line by Guy Johnson; 555 pp
Raised in the steamy bayous of New Orleans in the early 1900s, LeRoi “King” Tremain, caught up in his family’s ongoing feud with the rival DuMont family, learns to fight. But when the teenage King mistakenly kills two white deputies during a botched raid on the DuMonts, the Tremains’ fear of reprisal forces King to flee Louisiana.
The Storm by Ivor van Heerden; 320 pp
It was a natural disaster-but magnified enormously by government’s crushing incompetence in both preparation and response. The storm leveled the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but man-made problems destroyed New Orleans. The catastrophic flooding there should never have happened. Properly designed and constructed levees would have protected the city. Instead, they collapsed. Never in American history has a natural disaster been magnified so disastrously by the systemic failure of our government to protect and serve the people. The result is the national tragedy known forevermore as simply Katrina.
The question is, what do we do now?
Suite Française by Irene Nemirovsky; 448 pp
Beginning in Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation in 1940. Suite Française tells the remarkable story of men and women thrown together in circumstances beyond their control. As Parisians flee the city, human folly surfaces in every imaginable way: a wealthy mother searches for sweets in a town without food; a couple is terrified at the thought of losing their jobs, even as their world begins to fall apart. Moving on to a provincial village now occupied by German soldiers, the locals must learn to coexist with the enemy—in their town, their homes, even in their hearts.
When Irène Némirovsky began working on Suite Française, she was already a highly successful writer living in Paris. But she was also a Jew, and in 1942 she was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where she died. For sixty-four years, this novel remained hidden and unknown.
The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke; 528 pp
In the waning days of summer, 2005, a storm with greater impact than the bomb that struck Hiroshima peels the face off southern Louisiana. This is the gruesome reality Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Detective Dave Robicheaux discovers as he is deployed to New Orleans. As James Lee Burke’s new novel, The Tin Roof Blowdown, begins, Hurricane Katrina has left the commercial district and residential neighborhoods awash with looters and predators of every stripe. The power grid of the city has been destroyed, New Orleans reduced to the level of a medieval society. There is no law, no order, no sanctuary for the infirm, the helpless, and the innocent. Bodies float in the streets and lie impaled on the branches of flooded trees. In the midst of an apocalyptical nightmare, Robicheaux must find two serial rapists, a morphine-addicted priest, and a vigilante who may be more dangerous than the criminals looting the city.
In a singular style that defies genre, James Lee Burke has created a hauntingly bleak picture of life in New Orleans after Katrina. Filled with complex characters and depictions of people at both their best and worst, The Tin Roof Blowdown is not only an action-packed crime thriller, but a poignant story of courage and sacrifice that critics are already calling Burke’s best work.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee; 336 pp
At the age of eight, Scout Finch is an entrenched free-thinker. She can accept her father’s warning that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird, because mockingbirds harm no one and give great pleasure. The benefits said to be gained from going to school and keeping her temper elude her. The place of this enchanting, intensely moving story is Maycomb, Alabama. The time is the Depression, but Scout and her brother, Jem, are seldom depressed. They have appalling gifts for entertaining themselves—appalling, that is, to almost everyone except their wise lawyer father, Atticus.
Atticus is a man of unfaltering good will and humor, and partly because of this, the children become involved in some disturbing adult mysteries: fascinating Boo Radley, who never leaves his house; the terrible temper of Mrs. Dubose down the street; the fine distinctions that make the Finch family “quality”; the forces that cause the people of Maycomb to show compassion in one crisis and unreasoning cruelty in another. Also because Atticus is what he is, and because he lives where he does, he and his children are plunged into a conflict that indelibly marks their lives—and gives Scout some basis for thinking she knows just about as much about the world as she needs to.
Trespass by Valerie Martin; 304 pp
Chloe Dale’s life is in good order. Her only child, Toby, has started his junior year at New York University; her husband, an academic on sabbatical, is working at home on his book about the Crusades; and Chloe is busy creating illustrations for a special edition of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Yet Chloe is disturbed—by the aggression of her government’s foreign policy, by the poacher who roams the land behind her studio punctuating her solitude with rifle fire, and finally, by Toby’s new girlfriend, a Croatian refugee named Salome Drago.
Raised in the Croatian expatriate community of New Orleans, Salome is a toxic mix of the old world and the new: intelligent, superstitious, sly, seductive, and confident. But Salome’s past is a mine of dangerous secrets, and the violence that destroyed her homeland is far from over. Chloe distrusts her on sight, and as Toby’s obsession with Salome grows, Chloe’s mistrust deepens, alienating her from her tolerant husband and besotted son. Rich with menace, the novel unfolds in a world where darkness intrudes into bright and pleasant places, a world with betrayal at its heart. In shimmering prose Valerie Martin raises the question: who shall inherit America?
Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau by Martha Ward; 224 pp
Each year, thousands of pilgrims visit the tomb of Marie Laveau in New Orleans. In this old city she and her curse long have ruled the imagination. She has been conjured in dance, drumming, song, and necromancy. With dread and fierce affection, her celebrants ask for her favors and fearfully revere her enduring authority as “the Voodoo Queen.” Who was Marie Laveau? This book about her mysterious life, magical deeds, and pervasive power recounts that there were two historical figures by this name, a mother and a daughter. They were free women of color, prominent French-speaking Catholic Creoles, and legendary leaders of a religious and spiritual tradition that orthodox faiths label as evil. From the 1820s until the 1880s, when one Marie died and the other disappeared, a mixture of gossip and devotion swirled about them. With an uncommon business sense the two Maries applied their magic in shifting the course of love, luck, and the law. Both pitted their voodoo might against slavery and its forces. Moses-like, they led their people out of bondage and offered protection and freedom to a strange and assorted community composed of blacks, rich white women, enslaved families, and men condemned to hanging.
Watership Down by Richard Adams; 496 pp
A phenomenal worldwide bestseller for over thirty years, Richard Adams’s Watership Down is a timeless classic and one of the most beloved novels of all time. Set in England’s Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of brothers, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.
Why New Orleans Matters by Tom Piazza; 192 pp
Award-winning novelist and cultural critic writer Tom Piazza is a longtime resident of New Orleans, and a celebrator of the music and culture of that city. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, from a temporary outpost in Missouri, he began work immediately after the storm on this impassioned book-length essay on the storied past, imperiled present, and uncertain future of this great and most neglected of American cities. At its heart, it is a valentine to the people of New Orleans, and a plea on for their spiritual survival. “That spirit is in terrible jeopardy right now,” he writes. “If it dies, something precious and profound will go out of the world forever. Maybe not entirely; maybe New Orleans people, black and white, will get together in exile every year and commemorate their holidays and their spirit, Mardi Gras and jazzfest, red beans on Monday and barbecue and beer at Vaughan’s on Friday evening, maybe zydeco night at Rock n’ bowl on Thursday, and keep it alive in exile as the descendents of the Israelites have kept their faith and their covenant alive. That is up to them. But in the near term, the place, the sacred ground, that gave birth to all that beautiful and deep spirit hangs in the balance.”
The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square by Ned Sublette; 368 pp
Offering a new perspective on the unique cultural influences of New Orleans, this entertaining history captures the soul of the city and reveals its impact on the rest of the nation. Focused on New Orleans’ first century of existence, a comprehensive, chronological narrative of the political, cultural, and musical development of Louisiana’s early years is presented. This innovative history tracks the important roots of American music back to the swamp town, making clear the effects of centuries-long struggles among France, Spain, and England on the city’s unique culture. The origins of jazz and the city’s eclectic musical influences, including the role of the slave trade, are also revealed. Featuring little known facts about the cultural development of New Orleans—such as the real significance of gumbo, the origins of the tango, and the first appearance of the words vaudeville and voodoo—this rich historical narrative explains how New Orleans’ colonial influences shape the city still today.
Yellow Jack by Josh Russell; 256 pp
Yellow Jack is a ribald, picaresque trip through an 1840s New Orleans saturated with sex, drugs, death, and corruption. It is the story of Claude Marchand, an apprentice to Louis Daguerre, who discovers the magic art of photography when he hides a broken thermometer in a cabinet and finds that the mercury fumes bring out images etched by the sun in metal plates. After a falling-out with Daguerre, Marchand flees from Paris to New Orleans where he becomes the first daguerrotypist in America and he gets hopelessly entangled with both a voodoo-adept octoroon mistress and the erotically precocious daughter of a prominent New Orleans family. As the city is ravaged each summer by yellow fever (yellow jack), Marchand’s miraculous art is tested by death, politics, and jealousy. Mercury drives him mad, but his work will nevertheless make him immortal, after a fashion.
