Spizer discusses Beatles return to Abbey Road

Bruce Spizer, a Louisiana lawyer and expert on The Beatles, will discuss his new book, “The Beatles Get Back to Abbey Road,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

In January 1969, the Beatles abandoned the familiar confines of EMI Studios on Abbey Road by rehearsing at Twickenham Film Studios and recording an album's worth of songs in the basement and on the roof of Apple’s Seville Row headquarters.

The Beatles began recording sessions with three different producers—Glyn Johns, George Martin and Chris Thomas alternating at the helm. After this erratic start to the year, the group decided it was time to get back to where they once belonged.

That July, the Beatles returned to Abbey Road, where seven years earlier they had their first recording session with George Martin. The band recaptured the magic and camaraderie that was missing during the January sessions, and the resulting album, “Abbey Road,” quickly topped the charts in both the UK and the US.

Although the group’s January 1969 recordings would eventually be issued on “Let It Be” in May 1970, “Abbey Road” would be the last album recorded by the Beatles.

This latest book in Bruce Spizer’s Beatles album series covers all the records released by the Beatles in 1969, from “Get Back” onward.

For more information regarding this presentation, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at (504) 889-8143 or wcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.

Thibodeaux takes on unique Acadiana history

William Thibodeaux is known throughout Acadiana as a genealogist, amateur historian, leader of the French table in Rayne, compiler of Cajun French words and as the guy who relates fascinating tales of Cajun Country every month at Hospice of Acadiana. All of these attributes resulted in his book, “Hidden History of Acadiana” by The History Press, now on bookstore shelves.

Thibodeaux is a native of Rayne, a veteran of Vietnam and a longtime employee of Southern Pacific Railroad, where he collected and wrote stories of early railroad men. He leads a French table group every Saturday morning in Rayne titled “la table Française de Rayne et histoire” and selects and routinely compiles a list of about 30 Cajun French words and phrases that are audio-video recorded and archived at UL’s Dupré Library. His monthly history talks at Hospice of Acadiana in Lafayette (also taped) range from true crime to famous Acadiana residents.

This past year he was inducted into the Acadian Museum of Erath’s Living Legends. (Read more about that here.)

“Hidden History of Acadiana” include many of the stories Thibodeaux has assembled over the years, from the improbable Thoroughbred Twenty-Twoinit, which defied odds and burned Vegas odds makers at Evangeline Downs to the destitute Reconstruction-era Cajuns who sought
recompense from the federal government after the Civil War. The book features stories of yellow fever, interesting Acadiana terrain, serial killers and, of course, the railroad.

Thibodeaux will be signing "Hidden History of Acadiana" from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28, at Barnes and Noble, 5705 Johnston St. in Lafayette. There will be a short PowerPoint presentation at the rear of the store.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.

Fall university titles feature disappearing wetlands, a Cajun diary by Corinne Broussard and an analysis of jazz

UL Press

Over the past eight years, Tina Freeman has photographed the Louisiana wetlands and Arctic and Antarctic glaciers. Now those photos are paired together, addressing the fragile nature of both, in “Tina Freeman: Lamentations,” co-published by UL Press with the New Orleans Museum of Art.

The book is published in conjunction with an NOMA exhibition set to run from now until March 20, 2020. “Lamentations” demonstrates how the rising waters along the coast of Louisiana are both visually and physically connected to the melting glaciers at the poles, despite the separation of vast distances.

Corrine Broussard

The Acadian Museum of Erath acquired a diary and scrapbook assembled by Corinne Broussard depicting a 1930 visit to Grand Pré, Nova Scotia, by a Louisiana delegation led by then U.S. Sen. Dudley J. LeBlanc and consisting of 25 “Evangeline Girls” and 12 men, three of them priests. The visit honored the 175th anniversary of the Acadian Deportation. Authors Warren and Mary Perrin have turned the diary into a new book, “Seeking an Acadian Nation–The 1930 Diary of an Evangeline Girl.”

The book sold out of its first printing when the Perrins had book signings in Canada for the Congres Mondial Acadian, or Acadiana Congress. The second printing should be available now or very soon.

University Press of Mississippi

Laurent Cugny is a musician and professor of music and musicology at Sorbonne University and her “Analysis of Jazz: A Comprehensive Approach,” originally published in French as “Analyser le jazz,” is now available in English for the first time by the University Press of Mississippi. Cugny examines and connects the theoretical and methodological processes that underlie jazz. Divided into three parts, the book focuses on the work of jazz, analytical parameters, and analysis.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.

September mysteries set on Great River Road

Love a good mystery, but it's doubly entertaining when it's set in Louisiana? Here are a couple new books on the market now and both have mysteries set along the Great River Road.

Ellen Byron continues her Cajun Country Mystery series with “Fatal Cajun Festival” where Louisiana BnB owner Maggie Crozat kicks up her heels at a country music festival, but she'll have one foot in the grave if she can't bring the killer of a diva's hanger-on to heel.

Here's the book description:
Grab your tickets for Cajun Country Live!, the pickers' and crooners' answer to the legendary New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Maggie Crozat, proprietor of the Crozat Plantation BnB, plans to be in the cheering section when her friend Gaynell Bourgeois takes the stage with her band, Gaynell and the Gator Girls. The festival's headliner, native daughter Tammy Barker, rocketed to stardom on a TV singing competition. She has the voice of an angel...and the personality of a devilish diva. But Maggie learns that this tiny terror carries a grudge against Gaynell. She's already sabotaged the Gator Girls' JazzFest audition. When a member of Tammy's entourage is murdered at the festival, Tammy makes sure Gaynell is number one on the suspect list. Gaynell has plenty of company on that list--including every one of Tammy's musicians. Posing as a groupie, Maggie infiltrates Tammy's band and will have to hit all the right notes to clear her friend's name.

 

Sandra Bretting continues her Missy DuBois Mystery series, which follows milliner and Southern Belle Missy DuBois of Louisiana (Lyrical Press), with “All Hats on Deck.” 

Here’s the book description: 

When Ruby Oubre asks Missy (a Louisiana hat maker) to advise her grandson on a business idea, the successful owner of Crowning Glory is happy to oblige. After a quick jaunt down the river, Missy meets with eighteen-year-old Hollis about the viability of opening an alligator farm for tourists. But it isn’t an alligator Missy finds floating at the mossy bottom of the Atchafalaya River. It’s Ruby, and her death wasn’t caused by accidental drowning. It seems everyone from local tour boat operators to the chief of police and the mayor of Bleu Bayou had an eye on snatching up Ruby’s riverbank property. If Missy doesn’t unveil a greedy killer soon, her hat-making career could be bogged down for good . . .

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery. Her fifth mystery, "Give Up the Ghost" releases Oct. 13, 2019.