I
vividly remember the first time I visited the Crawfish Festival. I owned a tin
box of a Datsun and piled a group of my friends inside for the ride from LSU to
Breaux Bridge. In addition to the great music and dancing, we ate boiled
crawfish from plastic tubular bags while sitting on a curb, the juice dripping
down our arms. On the way home we stopped at Pat’s in Henderson for more
crawfish and libations, ending one of the most enjoyable days I had in college.
Sam
Irwin brought back those fun memories in his new book which tackles the history
of our state’s mudbugs,
“Louisiana Crawfish: A Succulent History of the CajunCrustacean,” published by The History Press. The book details how our love
affair with crawfish began and really took off with the advent of the industry,
its trials and heydays and enjoying crawfish today. There’s also plenty on that
now famous Crawfish Festival in Breaux Bridge, designated the “Crawfish Capital
of the World” at the town’s 1959 centennial.
The
book is full of great photos and includes some wonderful recipes, some from
historic places such as the original étouffée recipe of Mrs. Charles Hebert and
Aline Guidry. It’s a great tribute to those who started it all, making the
current crawfish fisheries a $210 million industry.
Irwin
is the product of a “mixed marriage,” his father being a north Louisiana native
and his mother from Cajun Country. The Baton Rouge freelance journalist has
worked for the Louisiana Market Bulletin and the Louisiana Department of
Agriculture and Forestry.
Upcoming
book events for “Louisiana Crawfish” include a talk and signing at 6 p.m.
Tuesday, March 18, at Octavia Books in New Orleans, 2 p.m. Saturday, March 22, at Barnes & Noble
Baton Rouge, 7 p.m. March 27 at the Thensted Center in Grand Coteau, titled
“Stories of Crawfish and The Way Things Used to Be” as part of the Festival of
Words, and at noon March 28 at LSU-Eunice.
Heart Wide Open
The
latest book from the Lake Providence author comes after she questioned the depth
of her relationship with God, discovering that she was a good church-going
Christian but lacked the deep feeling that others were experiencing. The result
is an interesting new book,
“Heart Wide Open: Trading Mundane Faith for anExuberant Life with Jesus,” that not only encourages readers to find God but to
develop an intimate experience. As with her other books, the style is friendly,
engaging and all things Southern.
Tomlinson signs “Heart Wide Open” from 3
p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, at Every Occasion, 703 Prairie St. in Winnsboro and
on March 25 at the Barnes & Noble
in Shreveport.
New releases
Clifton
Taulbert, author of the bestseller
“Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored,” has
published a memoir,
“The Invitation,” chronicling the transformative experience
Taulbert had in accepting an invitation to supper in Allendale, South Carolina.
At a former plantation house the author confronts his childhood memories and
wrestles with legacies of slavery and segregation that return to haunt him.
Seeing cotton fields and shotgun shacks that remind him of his growing up years
in racially segregated Mississippi, Taulbert realizes that he is now asked to
cross racial barriers that no “colored” man could previously have crossed
without dire consequences. Taulbert is the author of five other books and president
and CEO of Roots Java Coffee and the founder and president of the Building
Community Institute.
C.S.
Harris of Baton Rouge has just published the ninth book in her Sebastian St.
Cyr Regency mystery series,
“Why Kings Confess.”
New
York Times-bestselling series author Nevada Barr has sold an untitled Anna
Pigeon novel, which features a National Park Service Ranger who solves
mysteries in her job. The book will be published in the winter of 2016, a sequel
to her 2014 novel “Destroyer Angel.” Barr lives in New Orleans.
Gueydan Bookstore
A
couple of weeks ago we wrote about a new bookstore in Abbeville named
Kjuntales. This week we got the following letter: “Were
you aware that our little bookstore in Vermilion Parish has been open and at the
same location for 12 years?” asked Sean Gayle, who owns Patti’s Book Nook in
Gueydan with James Gayle. “We sell new, used, rare, signed and local author’s
works. We also sell art, original and limited prints of local artists.” The
bookstore has more than 10,000 books in stock and online from four different
independent bookstores at the website www.pattisbooknook.net. “We
also have a presence on Amazon at www.amazon.com/shops/pattisbooknook,” Gayle
added. “We are hidden in Gueydan, but we have a large reach since we ship
around the world.
Library Book Sale
The
Friends of the Lafayette Public Library Spring Book Sale is this week, with the
members’ preview sale from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday and the public sale from
9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the
Heymann Convention Center Ballroom. Gently used hardcover and paperback books will
be sold by the inch and proceeds benefit the library. For information, call
501-9209.
Book events
Native
Irishman Brian O’Nuanain will offer Irish humor, storytelling, folklore, songs
and literature from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. today, March 16, at South Regional Library.
The
Lafayette libraries will host a “Divergent” pin craft for teens from March
Tuesday, March 18 through Thursday, March 20,
at the Jefferson Street, North Regional and South
Regional
branches.
Riders
on the Orphan Train Performance will be from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, at
the
Opelousas Public Library, 212 E. Grolee St, Opelousas. The Riders will
present a 60-minute show through original storytelling, songwriting and video
montage performance followed by 30 minutes of audience discussion. For more
information, call (337) 948-3693 or visit
http://www.ridersontheorphantrain.org.
The
Center for Louisiana Studies is hosting a screening and roundtable discussion
on documentary filmmaking at 3 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, in the Oliver Hall Auditorium, Room
112, on the UL campus in Lafayette. A second screening will be at 6 p.m. at the South
Regional Library. The screenings will be of “McCrea 1971: The Story of
Louisiana’s Forgotten Rock Festival” and “Louisiana During World War
II” with filmmakers Jerry Sanson, Scott Caro and Bill Robison. Both events are
free and open to the public.
Judy
Gentry, retired UL-Lafayette History Department faculty member will discuss “General
Kirby-Smith's Leadership in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1863” at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 20, in the Gaines Center Hallway, third floor of UL Dupré Library in Lafayette. A Q and A will
follow the talk.
Angela
Carll, author of “Where Writers Wrote in New Orleans” will talk about the book
and sign copies from noon to 2 p.m. Friday, March 21, at Tulane University Bookstore in New Orleans.
Ragin’
Cajun Boxing Club coach Deirdre Gogarty, the first Irishwoman to become a world
champion, will speak about her book, “My Call to the Ring,” and talk about how
she came to Acadiana to live out her dream at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 22 at North
Regional Library in Lafayette. A book sale and signing will follow the discussion.
Kjuntales,
Etc. bookstore will feature its second “Meet the Artist” night with Bryant
Benoit from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, March 22, at 309 Pere Megret St. in Abbeville.
For information on monthly activities, email owners Sheila Hebert Friedland and
Mark Friedland at
kjuntale66@yahoo.com
or call (337) 740-0889.
Cheré Coen is the author
of “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic
Guide to Acadiana,” both from The History Press, and co-author of “Magic’s in
the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” She teaches writing
at UL-Lafayette’s Continuing Education. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.
Clifton
Taulbert, author of the bestseller “Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored,”
has published a memoir, “The Invitation,” chronicling the transformative
experience Taulbert had in accepting an invitation to dinner in Allendale,
South Carolina, where he relives old wounds growing up in segregated
Mississippi. The book addresses a powerful turning point for a black man,
that of facing childhood pain in a time when social mores have dramatically
changed. It’s a poignant memoir, although a bit slow moving for my tastes.
I couldn’t help thinking this would have been better served as a long
magazine piece. Taulbert is the author of five other books and president
and CEO of Roots Java Coffee and the founder and president of the Building
Community Institute.
Former
Louisiana state representative and Special Forces veteran of the Vietnam
War Odon Bacque has written an e-book on his time in Vietnam titled “A Walk in the Park: A Vietnam Comedy.” The book recalls Bacque’s often times
comedic experiences during the Vietnam War, largely thanks to the letters
he wrote to his wife, Cookie, while he was deployed. The book is available
at Amazon.com
