My favorite New Orleans hotel stepped up for the third year in a row and offered a 3-night stay in the family-owned, French Quarter Hotel Monteleone for Passports With Purpose. Now, if you hang around Passports With Purpose very much, you know that cupcakes are a recurring theme. The four Seattle travel bloggers who thought up the innovative fund raiser (this year raising money to build two libraries in Zambia) purportedly do all their planning over cupcakes. How appropriate then, that my photos from my last stay at Hotel Monteleone (in 2009) coincided with a celebration that involved cupcakes.

Which cupcake do you want?

The crowd was wowed.

Cupcake Tier at Hotel Monteleone

Always a busy place, the very classy Hotel Monteleone lobby drew plenty of people during the Food and Wine Festival and Royal Street Ramble.

Lobby of Monteleone

If YOU win the 3-night stay at the Hotel Monteleone, I cannot guarantee you cupcakes, but I can guarantee you a stay in an attentive, beautiful, well-located New Orleans Hotel.  If you ask nicely, they might even be able to get you a room with a river view. But don’t worry, if your room doesn’t have the view, the roof-top workout room does.

I can’t say enough good things about this wonderful, friendly hotel.  The rooms are classy and gorgeous. The Carousel Bar, which recently reopened after a face-lift, is one-of-a-kind. The hotel’s concierge can help you find whatever you want in New Orleans. Meet your friends as the clock in the lobby, or take in the roof-top view of the Mississippi, or just relax after antiquing on Royal Street, or bar hopping on nearby Bourbon Street. HUGE THANKS to my friends at Moneteleone for supporting Passports With Purpose three years in a row.

How do you win this fantastic prize, you ask?  Click on this link to Passports With Purpose, and pledge $10 for each chance you want. Couldn’t be simpler. And as a traveler who reads, you can be proud of the fact that all your ten dollar bills are going to build libraries for kids in Zambia. HURRY! Tomorrow is the LAST DAY!

This has been my contribution to Travel Photo Thursday. To see more photos from travel bloggers around the world, go to Budget Travelers Sandbox and click on the names of the contributors.

Disclaimer: I was the guest of Hotel Monteleone in 2009, however I was not required to write nice things about them, nor wheedle prizes out of them.

Photos all are my property. And though they are not of a quality that you’d want to copy, I still request permission in case you do want to reuse them.

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Well of course you are going to do that by donating $10 to Passports With Purpose, by picking a travel-related prize that you want, right?

NO? Oh, I see, you are going to donate $50 and put it all on that one prize you’re hankering for.

NO? Still don’t have it right?  Oh, I see, you are going to donate $100, but you are going to put it on 10 different prizes.

See, there are lots of ways that you can help build two libraries in Zambia with Room to Read, to help kids who like to read as much as you do.  Take a gander at that thermometer thingy over there on the right hand side of this page, and you will see how Passports With Purpose is doing.

Okay, but could be better.  After all, your LAST DAY to bid is coming up soon–Friday as a matter of fact.

So I am here to let you in on a little secret.  Those prizes like a $4000 trips to Maui, and a $3000 trip to La Puerta Spa and $3000 Mexico Resort stay are absolutely wonderful. You think so. I think so. Several hundred people think so. Do the math. How are your odds? I have the feeling that the fantastic collection of $300 worth of books that you can win from Interlink Books, or the $100 worth of CDs from Mac Millan Audio you can stock up on for your next road trip– although they are terrific for a traveler who reads, and a great addition to a traveler’s library–may not get as many bids as a $4000 trip.  What do you think? Maybe the odds are better for us library nerds?

Interlink Books

INTERLINK BOOKS

Have you looked at the catalog for Interlink Books? You will see:

                                  Interlink Books

Changing the Way That People Think About the World

I quoted their self description once before, but I’m going to repeat it, because it is so enticing for travelers who really want to KNOW the country they are traveling to.

Using travel as a way to build cultural bridges has been part of Interlink’s fabric since its birth 24 years ago…(Our books) give you the background information to enrich your journey; they encourage you to connect with people; they nudge you to leave your comfort zone, and help you to discover the unfamiliar. If you would like to get to the heart and soul of a city, go there with an open mind—independently; read about the city’s history and indulge in its genuine cuisine culture; and most importantly sample the literature of its leading novelists.

Sounds like it could be the mantra for A Traveler’s Library as well, doesn’t it?

I can’t begin to tell you what a joy it is to browse through their carefully selected titles. You can browse by region of the world or by category. Although they have a category called “travel”, every book they carry relates to enriching your travel experience, or tempting you to book a ticket.

And here’s a tip–sign up for their e-newsletter. I get the best ideas for new reading material from them and they are constantly introducing me to foreign authors I would otherwise have missed.  But then go to Passports With Purpose and bid on  $300 worth of  Interlink books. (It’s fourth under Gift Certificates).

MacMillan Audio

And audio books. Don’t you love ‘em? Here’s what Macmillan audio has to say about their business:

Macmillan Audio offers titles both abridged and unabridged both on physical media and by digital delivery. The division was honored with prestigious Audie Awards in three categories in 2007, and has Pulitzer Prize-winning authors and Academy Award-winning narrators on its list. Macmillan Audio publishes audio editions of the best fiction and non-fiction books for adults and children, from among the Macmillan trade publishers including Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Feiwel and Friends, Henry Holt and Company, Picador, Roaring Brook Press, Square Fish, St. Martin’s Press, and Tor Books, and it acquires titles from outside publishers as well.

The Macmillan Audio list is filled with such bestselling and acclaimed authors as Jackie Collins, Michael Cunningham, Jeffrey Eugenides, Janet Evanovich, Thomas L. Friedman, Robert Jordan, Robert Ludlum, Tom Perrotta, Marilyn Robinson, Scott Turow, and Tom Wolfe.

Books we have talked about here that come on MacMillan Audio, The Last Child (thriller and winner of Edgar award) by John Hart; Back of Beyond by C. J. Box; Summer Rental by Mary Kay Reynolds.  Or try something I haven’t read yet:  the Irish Country series by Patrick Taylor or the books about Province by Peter Mayle.

Bid at Passports With Purpose is $100 worth of audio books from MacMillan Audio. (It’s 5th under Gift Certificates.)

Hotel Monteleone

Hotel Monteleone

On Thursday this week, I’m going to talk a little bit about my third sponsored gift, a 3-night stay at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans. You can read more about Hotel Monteleone at this article from the archives. (Bid on it, 4th under Hotel-North America)

Good luck winning books or audio books, and please thank MacMillan Audio and Interlink Books for supporting Passports with Purpose.  And while I’m on the subject of thanks, here are the financial sponsors of Passports With Purpose. PLEASE support them in every way possible. Go to their website, check out their products. Tell them we love them.

• Round the World With Us
• TravellersPoint
• Home and Away 
• Good 2 Go (travel Insurance)

But go make your bid today while it is fresh in your mind.

THANKS!!

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Haunted House

I’ve been to a few scary places while traveling–most of them because I got lost and wandered where I should not be. But today I’m thinking about scary places that people plan travel to–in Phoenix, Mansfield Ohio, and New Orleans.

THE NEST

For the second year now, Rawhide, just south of Phoenix, has been home to “The Nest.”  The ironically named Halloween attraction is based on the home of a mass murderer who killed off his Arizona family back in the 1940s. Jacob Kell and his idea of a good time– cutting people up and stuffing them in the fridge–forms the centerpiece of The Nest, but before you get to Jacob’s house, you traverse three mazes and a graveyard full of zombies plus a freak show.

Zombie in the graveyard

I’ll admit that I am cynical about haunted attractions.  I think my mind is still stuck back in the home-made haunted houses of childhood where someone blindfolded me and made me stick my hand in a pot full of cold spaghetti which they said was brains. Never did believe that stuff.  And going through a mirror maze was so lame because I could generally see through cracks and easily figure out where I was. But haunted attractions today have gone to Disney School–they are packed with special effects including animatronics and laser lights playing tricks on your perception.

Second admission–I actually got a kick out of The Nest, even though I went through in the daytime so I could see the tops of false walls and never truly got disoriented. I would like to go back when all of the 100 plus actors were there jumping out at people.

Snarling Joker

Some of it was downright beautiful, like the neon-painted, laser-lighted Turmoil maze that plays all kinds of tricks on your eyes.

Turmoil Maze

Some of it was gag-inducing. Finger sandwich anyone?

Kell's Kitchen Counter

This attraction was purpose built in a large warehouse on the grounds of Rawhide, an old West attraction. No one under 12 is allowed through, but that doesn’t mean the family can’t enjoy a Halloween visit to Rawhide, because out on the main street the younger set can enjoy Doomtown, including such wholesome fun as “Legend of the Zombie Hunters.”

Glenn Rea, main creator, is proud of the fact that 36,000 people went through last year.  Many of the actors (whom he says are “in to being creepy”) have been with him for 20 years as he developed every scarier scares. The secret of a good haunted house? Rea says he tries to recreate your childhood fears.  Fear of falling, the dark, being shut in, and of course the biggie–getting sliced up in little pieces.

DERANGED

I have not yet visited the Mansfield Reformatory in Ohio which not only sponsors night-time ghost walks all year round, but creates a special Halloween attraction called Deranged.  Like The Nest, this one strictly forbids anyone under 12 on the tours. Unlike The Nest, the creator, Myron St. John does not allow any photos and will not give out information about attendance (although he says they are in the top 2% in the country) or specific activities on the tour. He did say that they have more than 60 actors and brand new animatronics this year.

St. John says, “..a customer going through the prison will go through close to 90% of the structure(which is huge) and travel through cell blocks, solitary confinement, administrative areas and eventually to the basement which actually housed the prison’s morgue… The time is usually 40-45 minutes, although many only last about 5 minutes and leave early due to fright.”

The Mansfield Reformatory, closed since 1974, was the home of endless real horrors for many years. You’d recognize it as the location  for Shawshank Redemption, and probably agree that it  is about the last place that anyone would want to spend time normally, so naturally that makes it a great candidate for a Halloween Haunt.

And about those real ghosts at the Reformatory? St. John says, “Every year I have customers tell me about their hair being pulled, getting pinched or a shadow moving into or out of a wall and ask how we did it…well, we didn’t…that’s the supernatural part, obviously the spirits want some Halloween fun too.

The Mortuary

New Orleans, even before Anne Rice, has some extremely spooky corners. Take those above ground cemeteries, for instance.  And right beside one of the cemeteries stands a lovely old house built in 1972 that once housed a mortuary.  Now packed with electronic gear, TV cameras, sound sensers and thermostats, the morturary attracts ghost seekers year round as  Mystère Mansion.  Managers emphasizes the beauty of the house as they markets to event-planners. The only hint that something different lurks here, is the availability of a seance room.  Like the Reformatory, though, at Halloween it ups the ante with electronic ghostliness and becomes simply The Mortuary.

In the seance room of the Haunted Mortuary

You can read more about the Mystère  Mansion and its evil twin, The Haunted Mortuary in my 2009 article here.

And here are more scary places:

• FreeEEEEE  Halloween Events from National Geographic Travelers
• If you want to actually SLEEP with the ghosts, try this article:    Haunted Hotels by Kerri Campbell at Mainstreet.com
• Planing a trip? How about haunted highways?  Wandering Educators.com  invites you to…“travel down a narrow dark highway late at night” “In Haunted Highways … see what it is like to feel scared when you see hitchhikers dSite Statsisappear into thin air in your back seat, or … see the ghost train with Lincoln’s casket on board.”
• Scary songs and ghostly music from Music Road. (I like the one in which the murder victim’s bones turn into a fiddle.)
• Bake some Ghostly Brownies with My Kids Eat Squid.com.
• Some comic relief from all that scary stuff, from My Itchy Travel Feet and dogs in worldly costumes from Will My Dog Hate Me.

With the exception of the top photo which came from Flickr, all of the photos are the property of Vera Marie Badertscher, all rights reserved.  I saw The Nest on a preview press tour, and will soon travel to Mansfield Ohio Reformatory at the invitation of the Mansfield Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. My trip to New Orleans, when I visited Mystère Mansion was sponsored by the Hotel Monteleone. No matter who pays for the ticket, I only write about things I think you will be interested in.

Your turn. If you had to vote for the scariest Haunted  attraction you had ever visited, what would be your choice?

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Family Travel Friday

Destination: Aquarium

By Jennifer Close

The mystery of the ocean never ceases to amaze children and adults alike.  There is lots of information about the ocean, but there is still so much exploring to be done.  I have been fascinated with the ocean, its inhabitants and geography, since I was a little girl.  My children are just as fascinated with the ocean as I am.  We make regular visits to the beach where we almost always spy crabs, fish, and jellyfish.  If the sun is bright and high in the sky, we wander down the pier so that we can walk over the ocean while watching the water to spy the occasional stingray or turtle.

The Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, New Orleans

Visiting an aquarium is a good way to get an up close look at sharks, turtles, fish, seahorses and more without having to get your dive certification!We have visited aquariums in Baltimore, Virginia Beach, Atlanta, and Myrtle Beach just to name a few.

RipleysAquarium Myrtle Beach

Aquarium underwater picture with wax resist technique

Jennifer Close, of Two Kids and a Map, is a regular Contributor to A Traveler’s Library, bringing us cultural inspirations for travel.  As a policy of A Traveler’s Library, we tell you about affiliate links. The links to books included here make it possible for you to go directly to Amazon if you wish to buy a book. They are affiliate links, and if you buy anything through the affiliate links in this post, you will be supporting A Traveler’s Library. Thank you.

As much as I love New Orleans, I’ve never been to the aquarium there, so am glad to have Jennifer’s introduction. I did love the one in Chatanooga, Tennessee. Where is your favorite aquarium?

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Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris

Congratulations to Susan Johnston, writer of a blog for writers called The Urban Muse, for winning the YakPak student backpack that was part of our Christmas Giveaway. If you’re disappointed, stick around, we have another YakPak to give away in January.

Huge thanks to YakPak for sharing one of their indestructible bags for readers of A Traveler’s Library.  Take a look at their colorful web site, and check them out on Facebook, too.  And thanks to everybody who entered the contest.

Hotel Monteleone

And thanks to the Passports With Purpose fund raiser for the purpose of building a village in India, Jessica Spiegel, blogger at Why Go Italy Guide, will be going to an Italian-family owned hotel in New Orleans, the wonderful Hotel Monteleone. Here’s a preview of what she’l enjoy at the Literary Landmark Hotel.

Sun C brand of Los Caballeros

AND Laura L. C. will be rounding up her cowboy gear for a trip to Wickenburg Arizona, compliments of Passports With Purpose (and thanks to the generosity of the Rancho de los Caballeros.) You can read about Ken’s and My experience at the ranch. Huge thanks to everyone who donated and helped bust right through the $50,000 goal to over $58,000. To keep track of the progress of the village that YOU built, and the lives you have changed, tune in to Passports With Purpose now and again. Thanks to the Five Cupcakes (aka Meg, Beth, Pam, Debbie, and Michelle) who organized and made it work.  Thanks to the major sponsors who put up the front money–lots of it. And hugs and kisses to the two terrific properties who let me host outstanding prizes–Hotel Monteleone and Rancho de los Caballeros, you’re da bomb!

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Book Cover

Destination: Anywhere

Book: The Witching Hour (1993) by Anne Rice

A GUEST POST BY Susan Lanier-Graham

Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour helped me discover those elusive travel moments

I have always loved to travel and I don’t remember a book that specifically planted that desire. But I do know the book that made me see the beauty of weaving a story about a place to make it come alive. Not a traditional travel book, Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches)
made me realize that words can create a unique sense of place that help readers see, feel, smell, be in a far-away place.

Anne Rice's Garden District home

My love affair with The Witching Hour actually started with my husband. He had read the book and was obsessed with finding the mansion on First and Chestnut Streets in New Orleans’ Garden District (also Anne’s private residence). On a trip to New Orleans, we found the house. I watched the emotion on his face and knew I had to read the book. I did when we returned home. I realized then the power of Anne Rice’s words as she brought the house from the story to life. All of the components were there in her book – the grand oak in the yard, the screened porch overlooking a Southern garden, the vines growing on the garden walls, the columns on the front porch.  Even a month after visiting, I was back on that sidewalk, outside those wrought-iron gates, gazing at the stately mansion.

I’ve never experienced places the same way since reading The Witching Hour.  Now, I think about how I could bring the place to life for others. I examine the small details that make the locale real, even if it’s half a world away. I want my words to transport readers to places they’ve never seen. But the book also affects me as a traveler. Now I search out places to find that special something wherever I travel. That sense of wonder of the place, the magic, the thing that makes it feel unique, but at the same time gives me a connection to it that lets me believe I belonged there all along.

One of the characters in The Witching Hour thinks about that magic as he’s standing inside the house. “…had any wandering observer ever loved it more? And in a way he had always lived in it, it was the place he had longed for when he went away, the place he had dreamed of…”

After all, isn’t it that elusive something we all look for when we explore the world?

—

Susan Lanier Graham

Susan Lanier-Graham has been a freelance journalist for more than 20 years. While her articles usually specialize in luxury travel and fine dining, she realizes that wonders are everywhere. Sharing those wonders — whether they be around the world or across the street — is what she enjoys most. The treasures we each find in our travels are the things that make us stop and say “Wow” and sigh in wonder. That’s what makes traveling such a thrill. Her own blog, Wander With Wonder is all about exploring those “Wow” moments.

Susan’s blog is one of my must reads, and so I was very happy when she accepted an invitation to write a guest blog for us. How interesting to peek behind the curtain and see what gives inspiration to a talented travel writer.Thanks, Susan.

Readers: Have you read a book that affected you like this–maybe not inspiring travel to a specific place, but showing you how a writer can effectively recreate an experience? And remember, you have until September 30 to leave a comment and enter the Italy Giveaway.

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Louisiana Church

Destination: Franklin, Louisiana

Book: Sunday Morning, Crowning Glories, by Mariana Titus

A GUEST POST by Dr. Jessie Voigts

Author Mariana Titus is an old friend and I’ve always admired her writing, care for others, and artistry. Yes, she’s an accomplished artist – she’s inspired our daughter in her artistic pursuits as well. Mariana’s books are full of a sense of PLACE and character. It is rare that an author can dig deep and truly share the essence of a place, culture, people. She has written five books about the area around Franklin, Louisiana, including Graveyards and Bayou Bars, Summers Full of Porch Bull, Hurricanes, Healings and Dancing Ceilings, and Rain,Cane, Bayou Refrain. We were lucky enough to be sent a review copy of her latest book, Sunday Mornings, Crowning Glories. Sunday Mornings is beautiful journey into some of the black churches around Franklin, Louisiana. Mariana shares history, food, family, and church memories of many people, creating an anthropological view into this area. The stories are enhanced by Mariana’s incredible photographs of family, gorgeous outfits and hats at church, beautiful smiles, historic buildings, the joy inherent in the church communities.
We meet incredible people like Ethel McClain Johnson, who noted: “We were poor but, then again, we were rich because we had so much love for each other and other people.”
Ethel Jenkins says, “I came into the world shouting…When I say something, people know it’s the truth…they can feel what I’m saying!” A section on the seven sisters of the McDaniel family truly gets the essence of religion and family, including this from Golden McDaniel Charles – “I attended the Evening Star Baptist Church. My Pastor was the late Reverend Johnnie Carr, Jr. I was baptized in the Bayou Techie. That was a glorious time. My Pastor prayed until the waters trembled!”

We were lucky enough to sit down and chat with Mariana about the book, her experiences in Louisiana, writing the book, and more. Here’s what she had to say…

Wandering Educators: Please tell us about your book, Sunday Mornings, Crowning Glories

Mariana Titus: Sunday Mornings, Crowning Glories is my fifth book.  It contains 149 pages of photographs as well as church related stories told to me by black women from my hometown of Franklin, Louisiana and surrounding areas.
It is the book I’ve always wanted to read.   I’m drawn to personal diaries, oral history, real life stories, local cookbooks, etc. , regional tales.  I believe that knowing where we come from helps us to see where we’re going.  The best way for me to do this is to transcribe verbatim what the subjects have to say about themselves – that way I learn about the area and their culture first hand.

WE: What is your history of living in Louisiana?

Luisiana Church

MT: I moved to southwest Louisiana at an early age after my dad graduated from Palmer School of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa.  He and my mother met in her native country of Venezuela.  I grew up in the Franklin/Garden City area.  Our house welcomed everyone and my dad often gave his services for free to those who could not afford them.  We were often paid with chickens, fish and vegetables from the patients’ gardens. One man, Mr. Dean, gave my dad free oyster shells for the driveway.   My dad was well-respected and my mother dearly loved by all in the community.  I was able to interact with a variety of people because dad’s office was in our house. They told me stories about their own lives which nourished my curiosity and planted the seed for my future books.

Read the complete interview at Wandering Educators web site.

Jessie Voigts

Dr. Jessie Voigts is the Publisher of  WanderingEducators.com and contributes each month to A Traveler’s Library. She has a doctorate in International Education, and is passionate about intercultural learning. She and her husband are Worldschooling their daughter, and enjoying every minute of it. She is also a nature photographer and lives on a lake.

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And if a cookbook explores a region in depth like the Dordogne, then you have the best of all worlds, a travel cookbook.

Destination: Louisiana

Book: The River Road Plantation Country Cookbook by Anne Butler (NEW 2010)

In the introduction to River Road Plantation Country Cookbook, the reader gets a bit of history — the Mississippi’s impact on the development of Louisiana and the business, culture, and cuisine of the row of plantations built between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana along River Road. Butler says, in her introduction:

The refined culinary customs transported from France soon mingled with hot seasonings and cooking techniques from other countries and incorporated native game, seafood and fresh local produce unknown in European kitchens. The resultant dishes were and are superlative…

Although the sepia tone photographs used throughout the book give it a historic feel, the author swerves back and forth from historic recipes in plantations to much more modern developments and modern recipes. You soon figure out the book is not all about plantations.

The recipes come from a variety of sources and many are skimmed from other cookbooks (with attribution). I think I might have been more charmed by one of the plantation cookbooks quoted that gives both the old “receipt” and the modernized version.

The travel part of the book held my interest more than the hodgepodge of recipes. The author introduced me to the LSU Rural Life Museum, which sounds particularly fascinating, and she  also clarified which plantations are open to the public, their hours, their restaurants and gardens. She tempted me to show up for the Jambalaya Festival some late May in Gonzales, when a cookoff is held. Possibly the best ever recipe for Jambalaya (a former champion contributed it) is included in the book. Another place I’d like to visit, the Cabin (restaurant, cottages, a whole Cajun Village of historic structures) will lure me to Burnside, Louisiana some day to try the Buttermilk Pie.

But overall, this book was disappointing. The layout and graphics did not inspire me. A prime factor in a good cookbook , the index, also left me searching. Despite the fact that the book is more travel book than recipe book, the index lists only recipes and not destinations.

Destination: Texas

Book: The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook by Robb Walsh (NEW 2010)

Texas and Louisiana, neighboring states, are about as alike as Hawaii and Alaska. As Robb Walsh talks about food as culture, it becomes clear why they are so different. In this book he is writing particularly about the Mexican influence on Texas cooking, and some of that sounds very familiar to an Arizonan like me.

I laughed out loud when I saw that he included a chapter on Taco Trucks. We have those portable restaurants in profusion in Tucson. The nickname here is Roach Coach, but in fact the cooking is good and inspected by the health czars just like restaurants.

It should not come as a surprise that Walsh includes those humble Taco Trucks–he does not leave anything out.  I’m still flipping through the pages and learning new things about cuts of meet, types of charcoal, varieties of chiles, and much more.

This is a lively, colorful cookbook with terrific black and white photos–many historical. How can black and white be colorful? You will have to see the great design work to understand.  Full page and double page spreads of closeups of food and/or people include a priceless picture of Fidel Castro in a ten-gallon hat tucking into some barbeque on a visit to Houston in 1959.

Walsh says,

“I hope this book encourages you to get out your grill.  I also hope it puts you in closer touch with the foodways of Texas and Northern Mexico and brings some exciting new flavors to your table.  Most of all, I hope it makes your next fiesta a lot of fun.”

You see, he assumes that you are going to have a fiesta–and the whole book assumes you are going to have fun cooking. Now there’s a book with personality.

I want to thank Pelican Publishing Company for sending me a review copy of River Road Plantation Country Cookbook and Broadway Books for a review copy of the Tex-Mex Grill.

How do you read cookbooks? Only when you need them? Or curl up with them like a sizzling novel?

And by the way, have you subscribed to A Traveler’s Library? Next week we’ll visit India, Carmel California, Arkansas and Arizona. Now surely you would not want to miss a line up like that.

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Carnival Masks

Destination: New Orleans, Louisiana (1817)

Books: A Free Man of Color by Barbara Hambly (1997)

New Orleans Noir, edited by Julie Smith (2007)

People of color could be classified in a dozen ways like mulatto, griffe, octoroon, musterfino and more. But whites were classified, also. Besides the Spanish, there were the Creoles–French who had settled in New Orleans, frequently coming up from Caribbean islands.

“White Creoles, by the way, had an intricate hierarchy of words to categorize each other as to social standing and how long their families had been prominent in New Orleans society, so they evidently just liked to label things.  Americans, of course, simply did not count.”

A Free Man of Color

It takes a scholar of medieval history to explain the complex social system of early nineteenth century New Orleans.  In A Free Man of Color, Barbara Hambly*, who studied medieval history, manages to familiarize the reader with New Orleans society’s nuances while Benjamin January, the main character, weaves and dodges through a suspense-filled story line.

This book defies skimming. Getting through the first couple of chapters felt like pushing through a murky swamp, because of all the background information that the author needed to convey. But give the book time and you’ll embark on a series of action-packed scenes as January fights to save his own life by uncovering who killed a glamorous octoroon in Mardi Gras season.

Candlelit dinner in New Orleans

Hambly skillfully evokes an era that we romanticize, seeing it lit by soft candlelight or gas lamps. But even though he is a highly educated free Black man, January’s life reminds us of the daily humiliation of living as a black in the days of slavery. Trained as a physician, he works as a musician, and frequently has to duck his head and act subservient for his own survival. Because he has recently returned from several years in Paris, we get his fresh observations on New Orleans.

The book also serves as a reminder that New Orleans did not become instantly American when the Declaration of Independence was signed in far away New England. I once talked to the owner of a French language bookstore in New Orleans who told me that in the 1700s, the newspapers in the city did not mention the Declaration of Independence or victory over the British. To these French speakers, America was a far-off place, crude and without culture.

That flavor of the nineteenth century lingers in New Orleans and makes it distinct from any other city in the United States. That is why A Free Man of Color, or any of the other Benjamin January series that came after it, belongs in the traveler’s library.  The ninth January novel, Dead and Buried, became available last spring, after a hiatus of several years since the eighth.

*The website linked here has an up-to-date blog, mostly not written by Barbara herself and a lot of outdated pages. For another route to Hambly updates, follow her on Twitter, where for some reason she has only 102 followers.

Lagniappe

In New Orleans, you frequently get a little extra–the 13th doughnut in a dozen philosophy expanded to life in general. So here’s another book.

Old New Orleans

New Orleans Noir (2007), edited by Julie Smith, pulls together a collection of stories written by New Orleans writers just a year after the devastation of hurricane Katrina. Each story was crafted specially for this book.

Barbara Hambly presents a short Benjamin January mystery with humor and other New Orleans writers reflect on mystery and violence, both fictional and real, that take place in various parts of the city.

This book, by the way, is also part of a series that presents noir in various cities–for example, Brooklyn, London, Miami, Rome, etc.  I’m off to seek out the Paris Noir.

(And meanwhile you can read more about New Orleans at a number of my posts, starting with New Orleans writers;  plus for lagniappe, this post on Girls’ Getaway to help you plan your trip to New Orleans.)

See Music for New Orleans (it is not all jazz) at Kerry Dexter’s wonderful musical guide, Music Road.

What do YOU like to do in New Orleans? And what do you read to get into the New Orleans frame of mind?

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Storm over an island in Malaysia

Destination: Louisiana Coast

Book: Island in a Storm: A Rising Sea, A Vanishing Coast, and a Nineteenth-Century Disaster That Warns of a Warmer World, by Dr. Abby Sallenger

A Guest post by Dr. Jessie Voigts

I’ve got THE BEST book to share with you today. Authored by Abby Sallenger, PhD, [amazonify]1586485156::text::::Island in a Storm: A Rising Sea, A Vanishing Coast, and a Nineteenth-Century Disaster That Warns of a Warmer World[/amazonify] is a glimpse of life in another century, where storms have power but surviving them was much different than it is today.

In the mid-nineteenth century, in Louisiana (a foreshadowing of Hurricanes Ike and Katrina), a powerful hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, sunk ships, ended or changed lives, and almost erased a barrier island, the resort-island, Isle Derniere. This book combines history, geography, geology, and the true story of people who lived through this storm – and the challenges they faced in the 1856 storm (and afterward). Sallenger writes compellingly of the people who lived through it.  He did extensive historical research on the families involved, as well as geological facts that not only teach us about this storm and its aftermath, but teach us that we need to learn from history in order not to repeat it. However, we can still see development happening along coastlines in this country that repeat the mistakes of the past.

We were lucky enough to sit down and talk with Abby, about his book, doing research, and listening to the earth. Here’s what he had to say…

Wandering Educators: Please tell us about your book, Island in a Storm…

Abby Sallenger: Island in a Storm is set in Louisiana, but develops lessons relevant to problems faced along U.S. coasts today. The story is about a hurricane that swept ashore in the mid-nineteenth century, killing half the people on a barrier island called Isle Derniere. It’s a true story of the sea rising relative to the land—and the land changing in ways that made the island, and the people who lived there, vulnerable to a great storm. It’s about the people who faced that hurricane, and how they came into harm’s way by seemingly disparate, sometimes odd intersections of science, culture, disease, and agriculture. In the end, the book is about an island dying and what this means for the world’s barrier islands in a warmer world.

Go to Wandering Educators to read the rest of the interview with Dr. Sallenger.

Dr. Jessie Voigts

Dr. Jessie Voigts is the Publisher of  WanderingEducators.com and contributes each month to A Traveler’s Library. She has a doctorate in International Education, and is passionate about intercultural learning. She and her husband are Worldschooling their daughter, and enjoying every minute of it. She is also a nature photographer and lives on a lake.

The phenomenal storm photo accompanying this post is from Flickr, click photo for more info. Although it is not an island off Louisiana, it is an island in a storm.

Thanks so much Jessie, for another great contribution to A Traveler’s Library and to our bookshelves. If you want to read about another disappearing island, see Surviving Paradise

See the post just above this one for the First Grand Prize of the Great Big Travel Literature Giveaway and information on how to win.

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©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.