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jessicalmsw's review against another edition
5.0
We all know what happened with Hurricane Katrina. This book tells the story of 9 people and their lives leading up to Katrina. Their stories are diverse, but all demonstrate a love for their city, along with a remarkable amount of resilience.
I think I was especially moved by this book as I see many similarities with my experience providing social work in Flint, MI. Both are cities that have dealt with high levels of corruption, crime, and preventable disasters. Both of their people were abandoned when they needed help the most. Despite this, both cities have people who continue to love and fight for their cities. This is what got me.
I think I was especially moved by this book as I see many similarities with my experience providing social work in Flint, MI. Both are cities that have dealt with high levels of corruption, crime, and preventable disasters. Both of their people were abandoned when they needed help the most. Despite this, both cities have people who continue to love and fight for their cities. This is what got me.
bibliobritt's review against another edition
5.0
One of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read, and one of the best books ever written about New Orleans. This book reminds all New Orleanians why they stay, why they move back, or in my case, why they moved here and can’t imagine living anywhere else.
mrspdb's review against another edition
5.0
This is a book that makes me happy to be a slow reader - I just strolled through it and could soak up the atmosphere of New Orleans. However, that made reading about Katrina that much more devastating. An amazing read.
oclairej's review against another edition
3.0
Nine lives is the true story of New Orleans, specifically 9 very unique residents from all different social and economic status. It begins with the devestating Hurricane Betsy and comes to modern day (~2007) with the characters.
Although the book is choppy and hard to follow at times due to the organization and cutting in and out of each of the 9 people's lives, the story becomes more and more interesting as the book winds on. The first hand accounts of Hurricane Katrina are both riveting and appauling.
The book does a great job of capturing the cultural and the things that make New Orleans so unique (the Kings of Carnival and Mardi Gras details, the attitude of people, the race relations etc.). I would give it four stars if it weren't for the organization problem (I found myself flipping back during the first 75 pages tryhing to remember the characters and what was happening to them. However, the story does eventually pull you in and you do feel connected to each character.
I'm going to NOLA on vaction soon and it was a great book to really introduce me to the people of NOLA.
Although the book is choppy and hard to follow at times due to the organization and cutting in and out of each of the 9 people's lives, the story becomes more and more interesting as the book winds on. The first hand accounts of Hurricane Katrina are both riveting and appauling.
The book does a great job of capturing the cultural and the things that make New Orleans so unique (the Kings of Carnival and Mardi Gras details, the attitude of people, the race relations etc.). I would give it four stars if it weren't for the organization problem (I found myself flipping back during the first 75 pages tryhing to remember the characters and what was happening to them. However, the story does eventually pull you in and you do feel connected to each character.
I'm going to NOLA on vaction soon and it was a great book to really introduce me to the people of NOLA.
carinthia72's review against another edition
5.0
New Orleans is a city full of contradictions, a place out of context with the rest of America. It defies understanding, explanation, and most especially, classification. It’s a quality the residents hold onto, this testament of uniqueness, even as the city has teetered time and again on the brink of destruction.
I’ve lived near New Orleans for most of my life. I’m a frequent visitor there, and, like everyone else who comes, I’ve fallen in love with its decadent grandness, its welcoming, leisurely way of life. All manner of man calls New Orleans home, and every one of them is right. It is unique, out of step with the rest of America. And this is exactly why it is so important to save, even now, even as the great lady teeters on her knees trying desperately to rise from the devastation of Katrina.
Dan Baum, on assignment from The New Yorker after the storm, quickly learned this. He, along with his wife Margaret, eventually moved to New Orleans in order to write a book, one in which, using the bookends of Betsy in 1965 and Katrina in 2005, captures perfectly what it means to love this city.
Baum chose nine people he had gotten to know after the storm, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews, writing the story of the city through their eyes. They are from vastly different ends of the socio-political spectrum, ranging from the widow of a revered Mardi Gras Indian chief to the long-time coroner of Orleans parish, from a transsexual bar owner to a former king of Rex and pillar of the Uptown community. Their stories are unique, yet a common thread runs through them all – the deep, abiding love of this place, of the home New Orleans offers to each.
The author captures that love without being preachy or overly sentimental. New Orleans is far from a fairy-tale land of mutual respect, understanding, and tolerance. Poverty, desperation, and crime are huge, unending problems, and Baum acknowledges this. The stories he tells are candid, real, and fraught with generations of loss and disappointment. They are, however, also stories of hope, people who have risen, time and again, despite adversity after adversity.
Many people in the rest of the United States have questioned why we should rebuild such a place, crippled as it is by poverty and corruption. It takes spending time in New Orleans to learn its value, I suppose, to experience the unique magic that makes this city special. If you can’t visit, however, read this book. Dan Baum has clearly seen and understands. Five Stars.
I’ve lived near New Orleans for most of my life. I’m a frequent visitor there, and, like everyone else who comes, I’ve fallen in love with its decadent grandness, its welcoming, leisurely way of life. All manner of man calls New Orleans home, and every one of them is right. It is unique, out of step with the rest of America. And this is exactly why it is so important to save, even now, even as the great lady teeters on her knees trying desperately to rise from the devastation of Katrina.
Dan Baum, on assignment from The New Yorker after the storm, quickly learned this. He, along with his wife Margaret, eventually moved to New Orleans in order to write a book, one in which, using the bookends of Betsy in 1965 and Katrina in 2005, captures perfectly what it means to love this city.
Baum chose nine people he had gotten to know after the storm, conducting hundreds of hours of interviews, writing the story of the city through their eyes. They are from vastly different ends of the socio-political spectrum, ranging from the widow of a revered Mardi Gras Indian chief to the long-time coroner of Orleans parish, from a transsexual bar owner to a former king of Rex and pillar of the Uptown community. Their stories are unique, yet a common thread runs through them all – the deep, abiding love of this place, of the home New Orleans offers to each.
The author captures that love without being preachy or overly sentimental. New Orleans is far from a fairy-tale land of mutual respect, understanding, and tolerance. Poverty, desperation, and crime are huge, unending problems, and Baum acknowledges this. The stories he tells are candid, real, and fraught with generations of loss and disappointment. They are, however, also stories of hope, people who have risen, time and again, despite adversity after adversity.
Many people in the rest of the United States have questioned why we should rebuild such a place, crippled as it is by poverty and corruption. It takes spending time in New Orleans to learn its value, I suppose, to experience the unique magic that makes this city special. If you can’t visit, however, read this book. Dan Baum has clearly seen and understands. Five Stars.
nssutton's review against another edition
nine confusing lives. couldn't get into it after the first part, really glad i didn't bring it on the plane with me to mississippi.
littlemascara's review against another edition
4.0
I liked this book a great deal. Baum has long been a favorite nonfiction writer of mine and his Katrina reporting for the New Yorker is great. So I was predisposed to like this book. The structure was great, particularly his decision to look at the lives of his nine characters as a whole, rather than just how their responses to Katrina. That being said (and this is why it's getting four stars instead of five), I was more interested in their responses to Katrina and how they've dealt with the aftermath, and I felt the book ended abruptly, without filling that info in. It's still a great read, and I wish there were more info on the characters he wrote up. I would totally read a sequel.
booksnooksandcooks's review against another edition
emotional
informative
medium-paced
5.0
What a book to start the year off.
I’ve always been interested in New Orleans, despite having never visited. Being from St. Louis, I find so many similarities between the two cities through the shared history and culture of the French colonizers and the Mississippi River. I was only five when Katrina happened and so anytime someone mentioned it, I knew it was bad but never truly grasped how horrific it was until Hurricane Harvey happened and many people spoke of the parallels.
But wow, this book. Baum was an excellent writer and his words kept me both captivated and heartbroken. I felt the depth of grief of each person. I felt rage at the injustices faced. I found myself setting the book down to google things about New Orleans, such as maps and photos of homes and pre-Katrina versus post-Katrina images. This book has only made my interest in New Orleans grow because I could only think about how similar the city is to my St. Louis. It made me miss the sugary taste of King Cake and the fervent love people feel for a city that others deemed “broken”.
Dan Baum, I wish I had read this book years earlier so you could read these words, but I know your words will stick with readers for years to come.
I’ve always been interested in New Orleans, despite having never visited. Being from St. Louis, I find so many similarities between the two cities through the shared history and culture of the French colonizers and the Mississippi River. I was only five when Katrina happened and so anytime someone mentioned it, I knew it was bad but never truly grasped how horrific it was until Hurricane Harvey happened and many people spoke of the parallels.
But wow, this book. Baum was an excellent writer and his words kept me both captivated and heartbroken. I felt the depth of grief of each person. I felt rage at the injustices faced. I found myself setting the book down to google things about New Orleans, such as maps and photos of homes and pre-Katrina versus post-Katrina images. This book has only made my interest in New Orleans grow because I could only think about how similar the city is to my St. Louis. It made me miss the sugary taste of King Cake and the fervent love people feel for a city that others deemed “broken”.
Dan Baum, I wish I had read this book years earlier so you could read these words, but I know your words will stick with readers for years to come.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Racism, Death, and Police brutality
Moderate: Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Medical content, Child death, Classism, Gun violence, and Medical trauma