Here are 80 books that Dixie City Jam fans have personally recommended if you like
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In 1995, I was invited to the People’s Republic of China to direct a play at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. It was the first Canadian play to be produced in China. It’s amazing what you can learn in a foreign city, with time to explore on your own, ready to soak up the energy, atmosphere, sights, and sounds. The impact is even greater when that city is on the cusp of historic change. The experience power-charged my imagination and was the spark for my first novels–a series of mysteries featuring the detective Zong Fong, Head of Special Investigations, Shanghai. City Rising and its three sequels followed after extensive research.
It’s 1860, and Garibaldi's Redshirts have landed on the coast. Sicily’s ancient feudal society will soon be overthrown.
These historical events are the backdrop to an intriguing portrait of Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina, a quiet, intense, and, in many ways, sympathetic member of the doomed Sicilian nobility. War is upon him, and yet Don Fabrizio continues his stately life and loves with meditative detachment.
This may be a story of civil war and social upheaval, but it is also a depiction of ancient families and allegiances, dusty landscapes, and the night sky. It is filled with rich symbolism and prophecy. The Leopard’s message: revolutions come and go, corruption endures. Its contribution to great historical fiction: Don Fabrizio, the last Leopard.
The Leopard is a modern classic which tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution.
'There is a great feeling of opulence, decay, love and death about it' Rick Stein
In the spring of 1860, Fabrizio, the charismatic Prince of Salina, still rules over thousands of acres and hundreds of people, including his own numerous family, in mingled splendour and squalor. Then comes Garibaldi's landing in Sicily and the Prince must decide whether to resist the forces of change or come to terms with them.
I have picked these books because I have a passion for good reading material. All the books I have chosen have become reading classics in their own way. They are well written and have plots that go well beyond normal literature in a sense that they unveil the 'human condition' into the realm of the protagonist being up against all odds, where in the end, truth reveals all!
Everybody loves this book because it, of course, has become an international classic of literature and one of the best works F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, which takes the reader on a time-traveling secretive world of the upper-class set in New England life in the 1920s.
In F. Scott's work, we are casually and comfortably introduced to an America where new money met old money, and the tender tightrope one had to walk in order to vie for position, marriage, and peer acceptance in a world founded on wealth and prestige.
As the summer unfolds, Nick is drawn into Gatsby's world of luxury cars, speedboats and extravagant parties. But the more he hears about Gatsby - even from what Gatsby himself tells him - the less he seems to believe. Did he really go to Oxford University? Was Gatsby a hero in the war? Did he once kill a man? Nick recalls how he comes to know Gatsby and how he also enters the world of his cousin Daisy and her wealthy husband Tom. Does their money make them any happier? Do the stories all connect? Shall we come to know…
In 1995, I was invited to the People’s Republic of China to direct a play at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. It was the first Canadian play to be produced in China. It’s amazing what you can learn in a foreign city, with time to explore on your own, ready to soak up the energy, atmosphere, sights, and sounds. The impact is even greater when that city is on the cusp of historic change. The experience power-charged my imagination and was the spark for my first novels–a series of mysteries featuring the detective Zong Fong, Head of Special Investigations, Shanghai. City Rising and its three sequels followed after extensive research.
Read enough Cold War spy novels by John le Carré, and you can’t help but wonder, who is this gorgeous writer and how much of what he writes is grounded in historical fact. Then you read his memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, and see that le Carré (the writer’s pen name) has been trying to sort all that out himself in his books.
Meet David John Moore Cornwell (John le Carré's real name), raised by his father, Ronnie Cornwell, and schooled in the art of espionage by the British Security Service (MI5) and Intelligence Service (MI6). What you get is source material for what you’d glimpsed (and suspected) all along in A Perfect Spy, Little Drummer Girl, Smiley’s People, and many others. Betrayal goes deep.
The troubled relationship between father and son plays out over a lifetime. And as a writer, you wonder, how much of me is embedded…
"Recounted with the storytelling elan of a master raconteur - by turns dramatic and funny, charming, tart and melancholy." -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
The New York Times bestselling memoir from John le Carre, the legendary author of A Legacy of Spies.
From his years serving in British Intelligence during the Cold War, to a career as a writer that took him from war-torn Cambodia to Beirut on the cusp of the 1982 Israeli invasion to Russia before and after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, le Carre has always written from the heart of modern times. In this,…
In 1995, I was invited to the People’s Republic of China to direct a play at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. It was the first Canadian play to be produced in China. It’s amazing what you can learn in a foreign city, with time to explore on your own, ready to soak up the energy, atmosphere, sights, and sounds. The impact is even greater when that city is on the cusp of historic change. The experience power-charged my imagination and was the spark for my first novels–a series of mysteries featuring the detective Zong Fong, Head of Special Investigations, Shanghai. City Rising and its three sequels followed after extensive research.
When it comes to historical fiction, especially one set in Asia, James Clavell is the guy to beat (or at least match).
The story of Shogun unfolds in 17th-century, feudal Japan. An undisputedly exotic setting. A British ship is wrecked on its shores, and its stranded navigator must find his way through Japan's complex cultural and political dynamics. Meanwhile there are other Europeans seeking religious influence and commercial advantage.
Perhaps best of all, the characters are monumental and include one of the strongest and most courageous women in literature since Joan of Arc.
Alternate Cover for 0440178002A bold English adventurer. An invincible Japanese warlord. A beautiful woman torn between two ways of life. All brought together in an extraordinary saga aflame with passion, conflict, ambition, and the struggle for power.Here is the world-famous novel of Japan that is the earliest book in James Clavell’s masterly Asian saga. Set in the year 1600, it tells the story of a bold English pilot whose ship was blown ashore in Japan, where he encountered two people who were to change his a warlord with his own quest for power, and a beautiful interpreter torn between two…
I'm a classically trained Shakespearian actor who has spent a lifetime researching Tudor and Stuart times, imbibing their language, customs, and idiosyncrasies. As an actor, I'm trained to get inside my characters' heads and dedicate myself to their intentions. Also, as an actor, I've come to relish language and recognize what makes a good phrase, paragraph, and/or book. I not only perform the Bard, but I've also taught his rhetorical stylings to countless people. I love language and admire writers who use it elegantly. They say, "Write what you know." I know Shakespeare and the Elizabethan era inside and out. One's life can be changed by a book; the ones I've recommended have changed mine.
All of James Burke's novels are my favorites. His plots constantly take you by surprise, and his characters drip with foibles and exotic passions. This book does not take place in New Orleans yet, but Mr. Burke seems to equally understand the heat, the intentions, the loneliness, and the nightmares of the Southwest border. I could not get enough of his colorful dialogue and poetical descriptions.
A powerful and unforgettable thriller from 'one of the finest American writers' GUARDIAN
Danny Boy Lorca was used to having apocalyptic visions - the beatings he'd taken in jail and the booze he drank to forget them made sure of that. But what he saw and heard that night out in the desert was more terrifying than anything even his battered spirit could have conjured. A man tortured to death. Slowly and methodically and with inhuman cruelty.
When Danny Boy tells his tale to Sheriff Hackberry Holland, Hack knows something evil has leaked over the border into his corner of…
I was raised in Springfield, Illinois, what is considered Lincoln’s backyard. I grew up fascinated by history, and the Civil War in particular. The trouble was, its racial overtones always bothered me. Later in life, I became a high school history and journalism teacher and turned my interest in historical-based board gaming into a business I called Indulgent Wife Enterprises (because my wife is so incredibly supportive). To date, I have published 30 board games based mostly on American conflicts. When I retired, I began the ambitious project of writing a strongly researched account of the divisions leading up to the Civil War and through to the Reconstruction period that followed.
I love biographies, and I particularly loved this one because it portrayed a brilliant, accomplished, but complicated soul. Here was a man, a rebel hardliner who was once Robert E. Lee’s sounding board and deeply respected throughout the defeated Confederacy.
I wanted to know why he defied the South, became good friends with President Grant, joined the Republican Party (Lincoln’s party), and became a supporter of Radical Reconstruction. As I read, I learned, and the learning fascinated me.
Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography American Battlefield Trust Prize for History Finalist
A "compelling portrait" (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize -winning author) of the controversial Confederate general who later embraced Reconstruction and became an outcast in the South.
It was the most remarkable political about-face in American history. During the Civil War, General James Longstreet fought tenaciously for the Confederacy. He was alongside Lee at Gettysburg (and counseled him not to order the ill-fated attacks on entrenched Union forces there). He won a major Confederate victory at Chickamauga and was seriously wounded during a later battle.
We grew up in predominantly white communities and came of age during the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. As academics, we focused on issues of race in our research and teaching. Yet, despite our reading and writing about race, we still hadn’t made a connection to our own lives and how our white privilege shielded us and made us complicit in perpetuating racial inequities. We didn’t fully see our role in white supremacy until we adopted our sons. Becoming an interracial family and parenting Black sons taught us about white privilege and the myriad ways that Blacks confront racism in education, criminal justice, health care, and simply living day-to-day.
A memoir that haunted both of us about Broom’s love for the New Orleans house she grew up in, her family, and a neighborhood torn apart by the institutional racism embedded in banking practices, zoning laws, highway development, and other corporate and government policies and practices.
Broom’s mother purchased the house in 1961 in a then “promising” neighborhood. Over the years, the neighborhood was cut off from the city by the growth of the interstate highway, which left this largely Black area in decline from years of indifference by New Orleans elected officials. The house was eventually destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
The book provides a harrowing description of the destructive effects of institutional racism.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR NONFICTION
'A major book that I suspect will come to be considered among the essential memoirs of this vexing decade' New York Times Book Review
In 1961, Sarah M. Broom's mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant - the postwar optimism seemed assured. Widowed, Ivory Mae remarried Sarah's father Simon Broom; their combined family would…
I was in the fourth grade when JFK was assassinated. I grew up in the late 1960s as conspiracy theories about ‘who killed Kennedy’ flourished. Jack Ruby’s murder of Oswald made me suspect the mafia played a role. After Oliver Stone’s controversial 1991 JFK film, I convinced a publisher to allow me to reexamine the assassination. I did not expect to solve the case. Halfway through my research, however, I realized there was an answer to ‘who killed Kennedy.’ It was not what I had expected. I discovered that the story of how a 24-year-old sociopath armed with a $12 rifle managed to kill the president was a far more fascinating one than I could have ever envisioned.
In a similar vein to False Witness, Litwin not only exposes the shortcomings of the Garrison investigation into the JFK murder but in the process uncovers the fraud and false information that are cited to support some of the currently popular conspiracy theories about the assassination. It is filled with new information from Litwin’s own extensive research.
Fred Litwin exposes the truth about Jim Garrison, the New Orleans District Attorney, who ‘solved’ the JFK assassination in 1967.
On the Trail of Delusion shows how Garrison persecuted an innocent gay man in order to spout his crazy conspiracy theories. There is also a touch of bribery and intimidation, the story of his attempt to charge a dead man with being a grassy knoll assassin, the former Marine he believed was a ‘second Oswald,’ several con men who turned the tables and fooled Garrison, the use of truth serum and hypnosis to recover memories, the ugly story of Oliver…
I have been a fan of romantic suspense since I was a teen (many decades ago) and started writing my DAG Team Series in 2016. I adore everything about this genre – the puzzles, the intrigue and how they affect the budding relationship between the main characters. Dating is difficult when you are trying to catch a killer or on the run! Despite the central mystery, the focus is on the romance between the couple. The issues serve to add a layer of non-sexual tension.
The first in the Doucet series and a real nail-biter. A killer has been set free and the couple must team up to catch him. The trail leads them through the bayous of Louisiana and the author does a great job at escalating the tension between them and the environment.
A botched investigation - and a killer walks free...
The death of a beautiful woman ... an arrogant man who claimed to be her suitor but was probably her murderer ... a cop accused of planting evidence ... and a town steeped in secrets and shadows.
Deputy Annie Broussard is still haunted by the case of Pamela Bichon. The killer walked free, and Annie can't forget the sight of Pamela's mutilated body.
But her obsessive search for justice lands her with a dilemma where she must defend or accuse a fellow cop ...
I have been writing and illustrating books for fifteen years, and I am passionate about the art of making picture books. I love music and dance too. While making this list, I was amazed by how different visual artists that I admire—and who have very different styles—were able to capture movement, rhythm, and energy. I was also fascinated by how the different authors crafted their stories and yet all of them managed to celebrate Black culture and resilience.
I love Gregory Christie’s artwork. His naïf style illustrations may seem crude and simple at first glance, but I think they are incredibly rhythmic and powerful.
His images pair seamlessly with the book's lyrical text, which depicts the awful hardships that enslaved people in New Orleans endured and the joy they felt on Sundays when they were free to play music, dance, and spend time together in Congo Square.
Winner of a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2016 A School Library Journal Best Book of 2016: Nonfiction Starred reviews from School Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, and The Horn Book Magazine A Junior Library Guild Selection
This poetic, nonfiction story about a little-known piece of African American history captures a human's capacity to find hope and joy in difficult circumstances and demonstrates how New Orleans' Congo Square was truly freedom's heart.
