Bayou Bytes Blog

This book's full title is really Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks, and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream  -- just so you know what you're in for! And this is an engaging book-- a real must-read look into the high-stakes world of American home-ownership.  Detailed here is a horrific story of how settling down isn't *just* settling down-- it's a story about how generations of financial wheeling-and-dealing have conspired to make owning a home as difficult and as financially painful as possible. How much of your home is actually your home right now? How much of your home will continue to be your home in the future? This is the book that will renew outrage about America’s wealth gap, the state of American homeownership, and the systemic corruption within the American financial system. Are your eyes glazing over?  Stop it, because this book doesn’t just spill tea abou...

It's nearly the end of the summer! Immunizations are a hot topic, so let's review a recent blockbuster book about the history of medical research. At the time Henrietta Lacks died from cervical cancer at John Hopkins in 1951, doctors were routinely taking cell biopsies without obtaining informed patient consent. But once researchers discovered Lacks's cervical cancer cell line (called HeLa) was immortal, they used it to develop countless medical advances and vaccines (including polio vaccines). The line became commercialized, and lives were saved worldwide. Meanwhile, Henrietta Lacks's own family went without health insurance.   The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot doesn't just explore the impact of Henrietta Lacks and her unusual cervical cancer cells on scientific research-- it also tackles the importance of ethical research, racism and classism in American medicine, and informed consent. I would highly recommend this book to teens or adults inte...

You may know Anne Bonny and Mary Reed, but most female pirates get left out of prominent pirate literature. In Pirate Women,  Laura Sook Duncombe rights that wrong, with stories of the coolest women who sailed the seas.  Duncombe shares stories of who these women were, why they left their homes, and their most impressive deeds. Until reading this, I'm sad to say I had never heard of many of these pirates. But their successes certainly rival those of their male counterparts. Duncombe covers pirates from all over the globe, some of whom lived outside of the traditional Golden Age of Piracy. Each chapter focuses on a different woman, and overall the book is an exciting read.  For readers who have always been fascinated by pirates, this is a fun resource to add to your collection! You can find it at your local library here .  This book is aimed at adults, but if you have a younger reader with a love of pirates, Laura Duncombe also wrote a Young Adult version that covers ...

The full title of this truffle-based true crime exposé is Truffle Underground: A Tale of  Mystery, Mayhem, and Manipulation in the Shadowy Market of the World's Most Expensive Fungus , and it makes the topic of this book pretty clear. Being personally averse to anything resembling a mushroom, I have always avoided truffles. But even I've heard the hype, and heard how expensive they are. So when I saw this book promising to reveal the secrets of the truffle, I needed to know.  Ryan Jacobs was certainly in danger as he investigated the truffle trade. He stumbled upon farmer feuds, sabotage, and all kinds of shady dealings. He also revealed how such a black market could exist in the first place. In short, I learned 1.) truffles are nearly impossible to cultivate, and 2.) once you harvest a truffle, it degrades incredibly fast. If you're lucky enough to grow one, you have to sell it immediately . And from these two truths spring all kinds of plots to steal truffles from other f...

I grew up with an undeniable fascination for the lost Imperial Russian Royal family (and particularly Anastasia, of course). I remember watching Unsolved Mysteries back in 1998 and listening to Robert Stack describe how Anna Anderson's ears matched Anastasia Romanov's ears at 14 different points. Well then, mystery solved, I thought. Of course that's Anastasia. I was about ten. I didn't need much convincing. The later discovery of the Romanov remains quashed any wishful thinking; the entire Romanov family had indeed died back in 1918 via firing squad in Ekaterinburg, Russia. Like Marie Antoinette, the Romanovs have endured in the collective public consciousness as tragic victims of a violent political upheaval. We see that beautiful young family in photographs and shake our heads. We mourn the loss of a royal dynasty.  Helen Rappaport re-establishes the Romanovs as people in The Last Days of the Romanovs: Tragedy at Ekaterinburg. Her sharp focus on thei...

Courtesy of http://www.mayhewbergman.com/ almost-famous-women.html There is a subtle art to masterfully writing a collection of short stories.  You have to pack background stories, character development, dialogue, a story arc, and some type of ending all in 20,000 words or less.  Some people succeed at it; others do not.  Make that arduous task even more daunting by throwing in some little known historical figures and you have Almost Famous Women.   The 2015 release by American author, Megan Mayhew Bergman, is a collection of thirteen fictional stories about real women who only skirted on the edges of fame.  These women loved, mourned, won, lost, lived, and died; however, almost all strove for recognition that would never fully materialize. Whereas most historical figures in fiction are poorly written or catastrophically caricatured, the women in these stories are masterfully written.  The reader will glimpse the fictitious lives of women from var...

Ever heard of the Lusitania? How about it's overarching historical significance?  Or just the fact that 1,198 lives were lost during the sinking? Eventually overshadowed by the infamous sinking of the Titanic and by World War I which was just starting to pick up steam during the same time period, the sinking of the British ocean liner, the RMS Lusitania, was a catalyst event in the war.  Nonetheless, due to exaggerated propaganda accounts of the event, the USA's eventual entrance into the war,and the stronger disaster legacy of the Titanic, the true story Lusitania has faded into history, earning just a paragraph or two in most historical account of World War I.  However, the Lusitania tragedy means so much more to history: it was the turning point in the United States' attitude towards the conflict and introduced a new type of subterfuge warfare to the spotlight: the submarine, perfected by the Germans and called the U-boat.  2015 marks 100 years since the sinking...

Find what you're looking for here at the Library! In addition to rows of books on history and biography, we also offer these online resources that you can use from the comfort of your own home. To visit these resources, log on to http://calcasieulibrary.org/resources                                                   (Access Newspaper Archive available inside library only.)    

A national holiday in the United States since 1863, Thanksgiving has come to play a number of important roles in popular culture. It was customary in Europe to hold days of thanksgiving both for successful harvests and for events such as military victories, deliverance from plagues, and royal births. The date and site of the first Thanksgiving in what is now the United States are still debated, but the most famous in pre-independence times was that held in October, 1621 in the Plymouth Colony. There, European immigrants, "the Pilgrims," and indigenous Wampanoag Indians celebrated the harvest season with feasting that included the dish that would become a traditional part of the day: turkey. Throughout the colonial era, days of thanksgiving were common, especially in New England, but not universal or regular. Although national days of thanksgiving were proclaimed by the Continental Congress in 1777 and by President Washington in 1789, there was no great clamor for an annual ...