The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story by Julia Reed Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story
Book Review: if you have a drop of the south in your blood or aspire to...
Summary: 5 Stars
The House on First Street is the newest entry on my favorites list. Julia Reed is clever, funny, sometimes profound, always truthful (or as truthful as anyone from the south can or should be)and she has a perspective on both a way of thinking and a national tragedy that is different enough to be enviable. This is the first book, in a long time, that prompted me to put aside other things and read it straight through. Then I loaned it to a friend who did the same. Then I shipped it to a friend, the slacker, who took 3 days to read it. It has become my favorite birthday and hostess summer gift. From the first few pages where she describes her childhood job of finding lost purses for possibly indiscreet ladies to the last shocker page I laughed out loud and had to call another southern friend to read aloud at least a dozen times. (she had to buy it for her library). Can you tell how much I loved it. When will we have another book by Julia Reed?Book Review: Needed a little tweaking
Summary: 3 Stars
I apprecaited they put this on the Kindle so that gets a star to start with! (If you dont' have one RUN TO THE HOME PAGE, its a MUST FOR ANY READER)
While I enjoyed this book for the most part I found it sometimes went off on tangents that were not necessary. For example she mentions quite a few back stories that in my opinion do not mesh well with the book and went on far too long.. I found myself scrolling through them.
I can appreciate the historical aspects of the city and some of the people involved, but I don't need three pages regarding someone that worked for her that I don't know, never met and really had very little to do with the overall storyline. I do understand they are important but when you start getting into their family members it is a bit much.
I did enjoy her writing style, but I also kept thinking she was really was so fortunate her home only sustained a broken window and a tree issue and while so many were trying to figure it out there were so many pages where she and her friends and family seemed to turn it into a wine and food party, I saw more food and wine descriptions then I did of the reality of the hell going on around them. GRANTED you have to cope and KUDOS to the business owners who stepped in when no one else would. (and I share her views on Blanco and the Mayor).
I am happy she and her family did well but I would have liked to hear more about those that coped with some real loss and she had friends who did but did not expand on those story lines, which would have been wonderful.
I think it would would have been better with just a little more editing. To be honest I have a chapter or two to go and frankly I am not sure I will bother at this point.. again decent read but wait for the paper version
Book Review: almost a great book
Summary: 3 Stars
reed is amusing but i wish she was more honest about her life and choices. she pretends to share about her experiences but something is missing. the big question for me is would i give this book to a friend or recomend it the answer is no. i did finish it.Book Review: Makes me miss New Orleans
Summary: 5 Stars
I was born uptown at Touro Infirmary in 1936, raised in Carrollton, where I delivered the Times-Picayune newspaper at 4 in the morning. Educated at New Orleans Academy and De la Salle high school, Baton Rouge and LSU then back to LSU Med School for the finishing touch. Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins by the dozens. Suffered at a distance with all my relatives and friends after Katrina. Haven't lived there for years but love it and return when I can, if for no other reason than to prove to myself that there can be that many really good restaurants in one place! So, I read everything I can that is truly about my home.
Julia's little book is a treasure and captures the spirit and mood of the this truly remarkable place as well as anything I have ever read. True, she eats out more in one week than most native New Orleanians do in a year, but, no matter she got it right in all the essentials. Julia, while reading I could I could feel the heat and humidity and smell the French Quarter. Honey child, you done good even if you are from Mississippi.
If you love the old city get this book and enjoy. Next time I'm home I'll drive past 1st and Chestnut and honk.
Book Review: Julia Reed is the Queen of New Orleans
Summary: 5 Stars
Julia Reed has done it again and its better than her first book, Queen of the Turtle Derby!! The House on First Street is not only about her colorful long suffering adventures at the hands of questionable home renovators but a wonderful love story about a city and its people. Warning, if you've been to New Orleans and loved every memory, you'll fall in love again by page eight.
Reed is a columnist for Vogue magazine and if you're a dedicated reader like me, you turn to articles written by her and Andre Leon Tally first. Evident in all of her works are unique observations of people mingled with a droll sense of humor. Think Eudora Welty mixed with Molly Irwin. Don't be fooled by the title since Reed provides remarkable insight to Southern views of life, religion, politics and food. Readers will learn how only in the South could there be a city like New Orleans.
Most interesting to me were her observations of New Orleans after Katrina and failed levees left most of the city underwater. No one is spared from her tart observations: well meaning and slightly misguided SPCA volunteers, confused and dazed officials from FEMA, supportive fly overs by President Bush and local politicians who worried more about how their hair looked on CNN than displaced residents. All are skewered in a wry manner that leaves you chuckling.
While Reed is honest about the losses and greed of others after the storm, she finds and tells you about the glimmers of hope from everyday people who are rebuilding the city. If after reading this book you don't want to go to New Orleans, eat some barbecued shrimp, drink beer out of the bottle, dance in the streets and sing Louis Armstrong songs then I don't what to tell ya! Buy it, be outraged, laugh out loud, make up a batch of gumbo and buy a ticket to New Orleans!