Read, Discuss & Watch - Book Discussion

On Tuesday, November 1, join us for a discussion of the book "City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300", by Jason Berry.

Then, on Thursday, November 3, you may want to visit Penn Theatre where they will be showing the documentary of the same name.

There are a limited number of copies available to borrow at the Reader's Advisory desk on the main level of the Library.

You must register for the book discussion to borrow a copy of the book.  If you would like to read the book but not attend the discussion, please consider reading the book electronically though Hoopla (link below).

This book is also available in electronic format through Hoopla. 

In 2015, the beautiful jazz funeral in New Orleans for composer Allen Toussaint coincided with a debate over removing four Confederate monuments. Mayor Mitch Landrieu led the ceremony, attended by living legends of jazz, music aficionados, politicians, and everyday people. The scene captured the history and culture of the city in microcosm--a city legendary for its noisy, complicated, tradition-rich splendor. In City of a Million Dreams, Jason Berry delivers a character-driven history of New Orleans at its tricentennial. Chronicling cycles of invention, struggle, death, and rebirth, Berry reveals the city's survival as a triumph of diversity, its map-of-the-world neighborhoods marked by resilience despite hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and floods.

Berry orchestrates a parade of vibrant personalities, from the founder Bienville, a warrior emblazoned with snake tattoos; to Governor William C. C. Claiborne, General Andrew Jackson, and Pere Antoine, an influential priest and secret agent of the Inquisition; Sister Gertrude Morgan, a street evangelist and visionary artist of the 1960s; and Michael White, the famous clarinetist who remade his life after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina. The textured profiles of this extraordinary cast furnish a dramatic narrative of the beloved city, famous the world over for mysterious rituals as people dance when they bury their dead.

Beyond its ancient streets, jazz and Carnival masks lies a richer, more textured New Orleans than anyone imagined. The author spotlights the tension between a culture of spectacle, rooted in African burial dances, and a city of laws anchored in white supremacy. As culture and law grind against each other, the narrative advances a line of real life characters worthy of an epic novel.

There are a limited number of copies available to borrow at the Reader's Advisory desk on the main level of the Library.

This book is also available in electronic format through Hoopla.