Books

This week on The Reading Life: Talking Southern fiction with Michael Farris Smith, whose new novel is Rivers, and novelist David Armand, whose new book is Harlow.

This week on The Reading Life: Bestselling novelist Sena Jeter Naslund, coming to town for an appearance at the New Orleans Museum of Art, talks about her new book, The Fountain of St. James Court, or Portrait of the Artist as an Old Woman.

This week on The Reading Life: Longtime journalist Mimi Read talks about writing about interior design and her gorgeous new book, Tom Sheerer Decorates.

Plus, poet Jonathan Kline, making his debut as a novelist with the New Orleans-set The Wisdom of Ashes.

This week on The Reading Life: Book collector Edwin Blair and Historic New Orleans Collection curator Mark Cave talk about the new exhibit at the HNOC, "Alternative Imprints: Jon Webb, Gypsy Lou and the Hand-Sewn World of the Loujon Press," a fascinating slice of publishing history in New Orleans.

This week on The Reading Life: Lawyer James A. Cobb, Jr., author of Flood of Lies: The St. Rita’s Nursing Home Tragedy. We’ll also hear from Ramon Antonio Vargas, author of Fight, Grin and Squarely Play the Game: The 1945 Loyola New Orleans Basketball Championship and Legacy. And Susan has a few thoughts on the Katrina books this season.

This week is a very special Reading Life, recorded live at Christwood Retirement Community, featuring a panel about "New Orleans Writers Writing about New Orleans Women."

This week on The Reading Life: Journalist Stephanie Hepburn, author of Human Trafficking Around the World: Hidden in Plain Sight, and historian Michael Marshall, author of Gallant Creoles: A History of The Donaldsonville Cannoniers.

Correction:

This week on The Reading Life: Erica Spindler, whose new thriller is Justice for Sarah, and poet Jack Bedell, whose new book is Bone-Hollow, True: New and Selected Poems.

 And we'll have an audio postcard from Kate Richardson, who had a blast at the Ernest Hemingway celebration, Pobre de Mi.