The most recommended books about New Orleans

This is a mystery set in the gritty side of New Orleans, back alleys of the French Quarter and neighborhoods that tourists don’t see.

The murder setup is well-written and the author keeps the reader guessing about the outcome. Music lovers will appreciate the references to real singers and musicians that are woven into the story.

This is the 7th book in the Sleepy Carter detective series. There are a few references to previous books, but if you have not previously read any in this series, you won’t be lost. Fans of Walter Mosely will enjoy. I love New Orleans, (there are many mouth-watering food references in the story) and this book takes me there.

The best aspect to love about this book is that a curious twenty-four-year-old law student not only does what others couldn’t do, solve the murders of two Supreme Court justices, but her doing so manages to put one of the world’s richest men on the run from federal officers and keep the president from running for reelection.

Grisham finds a way to give hope to all the amateur sleuths and conspiracy theorists in the world that they can crack the code that elite professionals who are trained to do so somehow cannot.

One of the most iconic and best-known boycotts of the 20th century is the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, launched by Rosa Parks’ famous act of civil disobedience. But as Blair L.M. Kelley demonstrates in Right to Ride, the Montgomery movement grew out of a longer tradition of boycotts and protest in the United States. In the 1850s, Black women in New York City protested segregation in the city’s streetcars. Decades later, Black activists boycotted segregated streetcars in at least twenty-five southern cities between 1900 and 1907. Kelley’s book, which tells this forgotten and, at times, failed history, reminds us that boycott movements are important forms of resistance – even under threats of violence and in the face of significant obstacles.

I have always loved detective noirs, but the genre is becoming increasingly rare, and the new stories that are released are usually not nearly as unique as they once were. This is why reading this book for the first time felt so refreshing. It’s a perfect distillation of everything that makes classic noirs great, with fresh stories, ideas, and breathtaking artwork.

It tells serious stories without taking itself too seriously, all of its mysteries have great payoffs, and the characters are incredible, especially the titular cat, John Blacksad, and my personal favorite, Weekly the Fox. I loved the first story and have since made it my mission to collect the rest of the series!

Schnauzer rescuer Brandy Alexander is tired of living with her parents, not sure what's going on in her relationship with her boyfriend, Dante, and is looking for a little fun. She gets way more than she bargained for when she kisses a handsome stranger during a Mardi Gras parade ... as he's shot in front of her and pretty soon it seems like the New Orleans gangsters are after her, too. This is a super-cute cozy mystery featuring dogs, intrigue, fun characters, and the Big Easy. What more could you ask for?

Unique cultural and social traditions are a big part of what makes New Orleans a special place. 

This book helped me gain a much deeper appreciation of how these traditions build and sustain communities, serve as artistic and political expression and draw on New Orleans’ African and Caribbean connections. 

The House of Dance and Feathers is a rare and beautiful book that presents the Mardi Gras Indians, Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, Second Line parades (and a lot more) from a practitioners’ perspective as told by Ronald W. Lewis, founder of the museum of the book’s title. 

The scores of photos by Lewis and others provide rich documentation of the arts, crafts, practices, and communities that constitute these traditions.   

There’s so much to love in Daughters of the New Year. I was captivated by the way the mythology of the Vietnamese zodiac provides a frame for this story of family and immigration and the generational legacy of trauma.

In the present generation of Vietnamese women, one of the daughters is on a reality TV show, and I’m always a sucker for books about reality TV. But what really stuck out to me is the book’s structure, moving backward in time through the generations of women, the narrative becoming fuzzier and fuzzier in the distant past.

It shouldn’t work, but it does and creates a perfect picture of assimilation and resistance.

This is one of the few books on cemeteries that captures the unmistakable ethereal beauty of graveyards. Sandra Clark’s spectacular photographic collection of images from some of America’s most breathtaking memorials in New Orleans brings together art and science, soliloquy and stone, and most importantly, life and death.

When I was in middle school, middle-grade fiction didn’t really exist in the way it does now. There weren’t a ton of options for a young person who loved horror. So once I outgrew Goosebumps and Fear Street, I started reading adult horror. Stephen King. Dean Koontz. Anne Rice. I’ll never forget reading Interview with a Vampire for the first time. I had never been to New Orleans, but I was instantly transported. It was magical – electric. I could feel each word in my bones. Thus, you can only imagine my excitement discovering The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh. To that point, I hadn’t read anything that reminded me more of Anne Rice’s writing style. Just like the title, this book was beautiful. And haunting. With a New Orleans setting, a forbidden love trope, and lots of animated characters that I immediately fell in love with. If you… show more.

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.