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FATHER'S DAY

City of Fortune, How Venice Ruled the Seas

Roger Crowley

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PROVENCE & THE COTE D'AZUR

A Pig in Provence: Good Food and Simple Pleasures in the South of France

Georgeanne Brennan

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OUR FAVORITES

Arctic Dreams

Barry Lopez

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PENGUIN CLASSICS

The Log from the Sea of Cortez

John Steinbeck

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New Orleans

READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE

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We feature a handpicked selection of travel guides, maps, literature, books on art, nature and culture, all designed to help you get more out of your travels to New Orleans. Order an essential package, and we'll ship any additional items for free.

Essential Reading

Item EXUSS120. Buy these 4 items as a set for $57 including shipping, 15% off the retail price.
With free shipping on anything else you order.

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Eyewitness Guide New Orleans

Eyewitness Guide New Orleans

by Eyewitness Guides

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2010
  • PAPER
  • 240 PAGES

This thorough, gorgeously illustrated guidebook provides a terrific introduction to the city and its many highlights (USS305, $20.00)

Fabulous New Orleans

Fabulous New Orleans

by Lyle Saxon

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 1989
  • PAPER
  • 400 PAGES

First published in the 1920s, this charming book by local journalist and literary personality Lyle Saxon is a lovely, impressionistic chronicle of the city, its people and its culture. (USS01, $16.99)

The Moviegoer

The Moviegoer

by Walker Percy

  • LITERATURE
  • 1961
  • PAPER
  • 241 PAGES

Walker Percy won the 1961 National Book Award for this novel, his masterpiece, which unfolds in New Orleans during a momentous Carnival week. It's a great book that we can recommend as much for its sheer readability as for its palpable sense of place. (USS249, $14.95)

New Orleans Map

New Orleans Map

by Borch Maps

  • 2008
  • MAP

A folded, laminated map of the city center of New Orleans. (USS207, $7.95)

 

Frommer's New Orleans Day by Day


by Frommer's

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2010
  • PAPER

This compact guide, ideal for a shorter visit, features excellent suggestions for everything from food, hotels and nightlife to neighborhood walks and shopping. With a foldout map. (USS462, $12.99)

Lonely Planet New Orleans Encounter

Lonely Planet New Orleans Encounter


by Lonely Planet

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2009
  • PAPER
  • 176 PAGES

With a section of not-to-missed highlights and a calendar of annual events, this lively pocket guide organized by neighborhood includes suggested side trips, along what to see and where to shop, eat, drink and play. With a double-sided pullout map. (USS442, $14.99)

New Orleans City Guide


by Works Progress Administration

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2009
  • PAPER
  • 430 PAGES

In 1938, The Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration compiled this comprehensive guidebook, including the history and heritage of New Orleans alongside numerous city attractions. With a huge collection of photographs and illustrations of the city's people and places. (USS413, $18.95)

New Orleans Streets


by Stephanie Bruno

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2011
  • PAPER

The best of the New Orleans Times-Picayune columnist Stephanie Bruno's City Streets. (USS486, $15.95)

Obituary Cocktail, The Great Saloons of New Orleans


by Kerri McCaffety

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2011
  • HARD COVER
  • 144 PAGES

A photographic tribute and history. (USS516, $35.00)

The National Trust Guide to New Orleans

The National Trust Guide to New Orleans


by Roulhac Toledano

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 1996
  • PAPER
  • 236 PAGES

An in-depth guide to the architectural heritage, culture and history of beloved New Orleans. With chapters on historic preservation, neighborhood profiles and an introduction to the city's distinctive architectural styles. (USS98, $29.95)

Very New Orleans, A Celebration of History, Culture, And Cajun Country Charm


by Diana Hollingsworth Gessler

  • GUIDEBOOK
  • 2005
  • HARD COVER
  • 160 PAGES

This quirky guide, illustrated with the author's charming watercolors, captures the charm and allure of New Orleans. (USS428, $16.95)

Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City


by Jed Horne

  • HISTORY
  • 2008
  • PAPER
  • 440 PAGES

Editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Horne weaves eyewitness accounts and on-the-spot reporting into an unforgettable chronicle of disaster. (USS474, $16.00)

Coming Back, New Orleans Resurgent

Coming Back, New Orleans Resurgent


by Mario Tama

  • HISTORY
  • 2010
  • HARD COVER
  • 128 PAGES

Tama documents the city's struggle to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina in striking color photographs. With a forward by news anchor Anderson Cooper, who has devoted much time and energy to the Gulf Coast region. (USS496, $45.00)

New Orleans, A Cultural History

New Orleans, A Cultural History


by Louise Mckinney

  • HISTORY
  • 2006
  • PAPER
  • 272 PAGES

One in a growing series of well-informed histories, this book, organized by neighborhood, is perfect for travelers interested in the social and cultural foundation of the Big Easy. (USA158, $24.99)

New Orleans, A Pictorial History

New Orleans, A Pictorial History


by Leonard V. Huber

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 1991
  • HARD COVER
  • 384 PAGES

A visual homage to the Big Easy, with text and more than 1,000 illustrations. (USS212, $29.95)

The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast

The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast


by Douglas Brinkley

  • HISTORY
  • 2007
  • PAPER
  • 718 PAGES

In his New York Time Bestseller, Brinkley allows the survivors of Hurricane Katrina to tell their story in compelling detail. He documents the tragedy and its aftermath for the city and surrounding 150 miles of coastline, government mismanagement and the heroes who emerged. (USS469, $17.95)

The World That Made New Orleans, From Spanish Silver to Congo Square

The World That Made New Orleans, From Spanish Silver to Congo Square


by Ned Sublette

  • HISTORY
  • 2009
  • PAPER
  • 360 PAGES

Sublette (Cuba and its music) charts the remarkable story of New Orleans's first century from European colonization through the Haitian revolution (crucial to French and American negotiations over Louisiana). (USS498, $16.95)

When the Levees Broke


by Spike Lee

  • CULTURAL PORTRAIT
  • 2006
  • DVD

A requiem in four parts, Spike Lee's collection of heartbreaking personal stories and documentary footage, set against ravishing jazz music by Terence Blanchard, Wynton Marsalis and others, exposes the divisions of race and class in 21st-century America. (USS430, $19.98)

City of Dreams, A Collection of New Orleans Music


by Rounder Records

  • MUSIC
  • 2007
  • AUDIO CD

The definitive overview of Rounder's soulful, eclectic New Orleans catalog, featuring such iconic Crescent City names as Irma Thomas, Professor Longhair and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, as well as lesser-known but exciting artists such as Chuck Carbo and Eddie Bo. (USS431, $32.98)

Historic Buildings of the French Quarter


by Lloyd Vogt

  • ART & ARCHITECTURE
  • 2002
  • HARD COVER

Architect Vogt documents New Orleans's 66-block Vieux Carre, highlighting 60 noteworthy buildings from the French colonial, Spanish, Federal, Antebellum and Victorian periods. (USS468, $24.95)

Jazz, A History of America's Music

Jazz, A History of America's Music


by Geoffrey C. Ward | Ken Burns

  • MUSIC
  • 2002
  • PAPER
  • 512 PAGES

Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns vividly bring to life the story of the quintessential American music -- jazz. Born in the black community of turn-of-the-century New Orleans and quickly embraced in urban centers throughout the nation, jazz celebrates American individualism and creativity at its best. (MUS79, $35.00)

Bayou, Farewell

Bayou, Farewell


by Mike Tidwell

  • TRAVEL NARRATIVE
  • 1997
  • PAPER
  • 368 PAGES

Tidwell introduces us to the food and the language, the shrimp fisherman, the Houma Indians, and the rich cultural history that makes Louisian's Cajun Coast unlike any other place. (USS491, $16.00)

Satchmo, My Life in New Orleans


by Louis Armstrong | Dan Morgenstern

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 1986
  • PAPER
  • 256 PAGES

Jazz great Louis Armstrong regales with tales of his youth in Louisiana. (USS230, $16.95)

The House on First Street, My New Orleans Story

The House on First Street, My New Orleans Story


by Julia Reed

  • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR
  • 2009
  • PAPER
  • 199 PAGES

Reed describes with self-deprecating wit her return to New Orleans and a Garden District home just prior to Katrina and her shared efforts with locals to recover and rebuild. (USS429, $13.99)

A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces


by John Kennedy Toole

  • LITERATURE
  • 1987
  • PAPER
  • 405 PAGES

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, drenched in New Orleans color and culture. Its sharp humor, combined with vivid local detail, makes it great reading for any visitor to New Orleans. (USS02, $15.00)

Cajun and Creole Folktales, The French Oral Tradition of South Louisiana


by Barry Jean Ancelet

  • LITERATURE
  • 1994
  • PAPER
  • 296 PAGES

An excellent, wide-ranging compilation of Cajun and Creole folktales, presented side-by-side in French and English. It includes magic tales, jokes, animal tales, tall tales and legends. (USS152, $25.00)

Flash for Freedom

Flash for Freedom


by George MacDonald Fraser

  • LITERATURE
  • 1989
  • PAPER
  • 287 PAGES

In this fifth installment in the rollicking series, set largely in New Orleans, our self-serving, cowardly Victorian hero meets up with Abraham Lincoln (who saves his neck), runs a slave plantation, cheats at cards, escapes on a slave ship and helps out in Underground Railroad. (USS372, $16.00)

Gumbo Ya-Ya, A Collection of Louisiana Folk Tales


by Lyle Saxon | Edward Dreyer | Robert Tallant

  • LITERATURE
  • 1987
  • PAPER
  • 581 PAGES

A wonderful collection of charming, outrageous, time-honored, common, obscure, exotic and famous folk tales of Louisiana -- and especially of New Orleans. (USS208, $22.00)

Island Beneath the Sea

Island Beneath the Sea


by Isabel Allende

  • LITERATURE
  • 2010
  • HARD COVER
  • 457 PAGES

Isabel Allende turns to Haiti (then called Saint-Domonigue) in the tumultuous years surrounding the 1791 slave revolt, and New Orleans at the time of the Louisiana Purchase, in this richly atmospheric novel. She places a strong-willed woman, the slave and concubine Zarite, at the center of her multi-generational saga, which among its many pleasures, includes marvelous descriptions of Creole life in New Orleans. (USS464, $26.99)

Lives of the Saints, A Novel


by Nancy Lemann

  • LITERATURE
  • 1997
  • PAPER
  • 143 PAGES

A native of New Orleans, Lemann chronicles the lives and loves of the city's eccentric -- and gin-soaked -- bluebloods in this hilarious debut novel. (USS466, $17.95)

More of This World or Maybe Another

More of This World or Maybe Another


by Barb Johnson

  • LITERATURE
  • 2009
  • PAPER
  • 188 PAGES

The gritty, dazzling debut collection by New Orleans writer and carpenter Johnson. These nine interconnected stories follow four unlikely friends through the backstreets of New Orleans. (USS471, $13.99)

Saratoga Trunk


by Edna Ferber

  • LITERATURE
  • 2000
  • PAPER
  • 256 PAGES

Set during the 1880s, this is the story of the scheming vixen Clio Dulaine who returns to New Orleans to blackmail her father's aristocratic family. (USS122, $13.99)

The Keepers of the House


by Shirley Ann Grau

  • LITERATURE
  • 2003
  • PAPER
  • 309 PAGES

Winner of the 1965 Pulitzer Prize, Gau's searing novel exposes the hypocrisy and racism of New Orleans society. (USS465, $16.00)

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