Best Nebraska Travel Guides

On May 31, 1935, a storm system surged along the Republican River, bursting its banks in a matter of minutes with a roar that could be heard miles away. She has spent many years compiling the history of the flood, meeting with survivors and traveling along the river to document this exciting chapter in the Republican River's history.

Spanning nineteen thousand square miles of central Nebraska, the Sand Hills--North America's largest sand dune--is held in place by only a thin, sturdy layer of native prairie grasses and continuing faith that the land can be made prosperous by its residents. A writer and television producer, she has written for publications such as Saveur, Specialty Food Magazine and Omaha World-Herald, as well as blogs at BurwellGeneralStore.com.

Nebraska’s Cowboy Trail: A User’s Guide is the essential companion for anyone planning to hike, bike, or ride horseback on the Cowboy Recreation and Nature Trail, which currently extends from Norfolk to Valentine and will eventually stretch all the way to Chadron. The trail just ties them all together.”—Duane Westerholt, Nebraska State Trails coordinator, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. (Duane Westerholt). “ Nebraska’s Cowboy Trail will introduce you to a piece of Nebraska the right way—it takes you back as it guides you ahead along the trail.”—David Harding, history columnist, Omaha World-Herald. (David Harding Omaha World-Herald ). “For anyone seeking a true Great Plains adventure, the Cowboy Trail is a must!”—Helen Boosalis, former mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska. Kudos to the University of Nebraska Press and Keith Terry for highlighting some of Nebraska’s most remarkable scenery.”— Omaha World-Herald.

Three months on the New York Times bestseller list, PrairyErth is now in paperback. "Bill McKibben has called this book "the deepest map anyone ever made of an American place" -- a majestic survey of land and time and people in a single county of the Kansas plains.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and , unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Digging deeply, he takes an inherently compelling mystery and unravels the larger riddles it holds: the profound pull of the American wilderness on our imagination; the allure of high-risk activities to young men of a certain cast of mind; the complex, charged bond between fathers and sons. Krakauer brings McCandless's uncompromising pilgrimage out of the shadows, and the peril, adversity , and renunciation sought by this enigmatic young man are illuminated with a rare understanding--and not an ounce of sentimentality. Noted outdoor writer and mountaineer Jon Krakauer tackles that question in his reporting on Chris McCandless, whose emaciated body was found in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992. After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness.

Featuring 32 amazing road trips, from two-day escapes to two-week adventures, you can cruise historic Route 66 or be captivated by red-hued rock formations, all with your trusted travel companion. Lavish color and gorgeous photography throughout Itineraries and planning advice to pick the right tailored routes for your needs and interests Get around easily - 116 easy-to-read, full-color route maps, detailed directions Insider tips to get around like a local, avoid trouble spots and be safe on the road - local driving rules, parking, toll roads Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Useful features - including Stretch Your Legs, Detours, and Link Your Trip Covers Route 66, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Arizona deserts, Phoenix, Santa Fe, New Mexico's Enchanted Circle, Texas Hill Country, Big Bend, Austin, San Antonio, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, Monument Valley, Moab, Utah, Denver and more. Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, Amy C Balfour, Michael Benanav, Greg Benchwick, Lisa Dunford, Mariella Krause, Carolyn McCarthy and Ryan Ver Berkmoes.

Written by native son who has lived through some of New York City's most historic moments, Downtown is an extraordinary celebration of the magnificent, haunted place that Hamill continues to call home, and that people from all over the country and the world have come to call their own. However, his gruff, seen-it-all voice, filled alternately with wonder at the beauty of a building, disdain for modern trends and indignation at how some worthy historical character has been forgotten, is that of a wise older relative revealing the true past of a place he loves. Hamill is an excellent novelist (see in particular Snow in August, 1997), but in his latest book, he wears his hat as one of the last of the old-time newspapermen whose life and work simply define New York City. As he escorts readers around the island of Manhattan, he takes heavy glances back into history--insisting that New Yorkers constantly experience "aching nostalgia"--as he not so much classifies but revels in the distinctions of NYC both as a "concrete place and as an idea."

From her years as a spirited, secretive child, through her university studies—a period of exquisite freedom that imbued her with a profound appreciation of friendship and a love of travel—to her escape to a new life in California, Mayes exuberantly recreates the intense relationships of her past, recounting the bitter and sweet stories of her complicated family: her beautiful yet fragile mother, Frankye; her unpredictable father, Garbert; Daddy Jack, whose life Garbert saved; grandmother Mother Mayes; and the family maid, Frances’s confidant Willie Bell. Her “southern memoir” is a tale straight out of Faulkner, rife with episodes of dissipation and disillusion, parents who loved and fought with equally wild abandon, and ancestors with names like Big Mama and Daddy Jack. But she and her husband were sufficiently compelled to relocate from Northern California to North Carolina, settling in a university town with a far enough remove to allow her an objective distance from which to analyze the signature episodes of her childhood. With her trademark skill for capturing the essence of place and time, Mayes candidly reveals a youth riddled with psychological abuse and parental neglect that, nevertheless, ignited a fiery passion for adventure and self-discovery. “With perfect-pitch language, Mayes unblinkingly describes her growing-up years… One can almost taste the mushiness of ‘a pot of once-green beans falling apart in salt pork’; one can almost smell the cloying scent of honeysuckle, gardenias and overripe peaches that infuse the always-too-humid air.”– USAToday.com “Just the right balance of humor, irony and tragedy. “ Under Magnolia is a gorgeous, dreamy remembrance of hot Southern afternoons, mothers in red lipstick and Shalimar, Elvis turned up loud to cover up the family troubles that ran deep. In her new southern memoir, Under Magnolia , Frances Mayes describes the birth of her extraordinary sensibility, the deep-pooled clarity of her writing, her giddy love of nature, and her sharp and satirical eye for those who brought her up to honorable womanhood in the tortured South of her girlhood. “No one could have invented a more combustible, joy-starved pair of glam and oblivious parents or a more incandescent child to dive into the blue ruins, explore the sealed-off passages, blacked-out dreams and neglected outlets by the beams of her own incredulous eyes; then break the surface a smart-mouthed, truth-seeing sensualist, fully in attendance to the vibratory moment. The deft framing, the exacting word picks, apposite references, high speed wit, singled out synecdoches of a life; the cadence, phrasing, and pulse of a muted Georgian accent are all signature to the prose and poetry, stove-tops and passport stamps of Frances Mayes. Frances Mayes, a petite, brainy beauty from what we used to call politely 'a troubled home' has written an unnervingly honest and refreshingly open account of how a child can be neglected even amid privilege and a large family...

It was a time before Terlingua Ranch and chili cook-offs, and you could drive a hundred miles without seeing another vehicle or another person. He also writes about the lower Big Bend as it is found now, and what one can still rediscover just over the next rise. An eighth-generation Texan, BEN H. ENGLISH was raised mostly in the Lajitas-Terlingua area.

Leaving out the traditional scenic trips to the Mississippi River bluffs and the Amana Colonies, this guide will take the adventurous traveler to the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk, the home of the "Lonely Goat Herder" marionettes from The Sound of Music , and the world's largest Cheeto. — The Daily Nonpareil Jerome Pohlen is the author of the Oddball series and a regular travel commentator for 848 on WBEZ, the Chicago affiliate of National Public Radio.

There are meditations on downtown Mobile, where Hoffman's grandparents arrived as immigrants a century ago; the waterfront where longshoremen labor and shrimpers work their nets; the back roads leading to obscure but intriguing destinations. As he writes, "When buildings are leveled, when land is developed, when money is spent, when our loved ones pass on, when we take our places a little farther back every year on the historical time-line, what we have still are stories." After 21 years in New York City, Roy Hoffman (Almost Family) returned with his wife and daughter to his hometown of Mobile, Ala. Back Home: Journeys Through Mobile is a collection of his writings feature stories, memoirs, essays about the town, many of which were previously published in the Mobile Register. Hoffman interviews many of Mobile's distinctive characters, like Joseph Langan, a longtime Mobile mayor now in his 80s, who was once vilified as a Communist by whites who thought he was too sympathetic to blacks, and a racist by blacks who didn't agree.

A tool you'll turn to before, during, and after your trip, these guides include these helpful features: chapters on lodging, dining, transportation, history, shopping, recreation; a section packed with practical information, such as lists of banks, hospitals, post offices, laundromats, numbers for police, fire, and rescue, and other relevant information; maps of regions and locales; and more. Jen A. Miller , a writer/journalist who specializes in the Jersey Shore, has appeared on TV and radio and in print.

60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Cincinnati covers the best and oftentimes little-known hiking destinations within 60 miles of the greater Cincinnati area. Trails in the guide span Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, offering incredible views, ample wildlife and wildflowers, and a chance to enjoy the simple pleasure of nature. The guide offers key information like: • Hike time and distance. • Difficulty level and hike configuration. • Average trail traffic. • Completely updated maps, GPS coordinates, and park details. • Categories and an at-a-glance rating system for interests such as kid-friendliness, scenery, waterfalls, wildlife, public transit, and more.

Lonely Planet Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks is your passport to the most relevant, up-to-date advice on what to see and skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. User-friendly highlights and itineraries help you tailor your trip to your personal needs and interests Insider tips to save time and money and get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, prices, emergency information, park seasonality, hiking trail junctions, viewpoints, landscapes, elevations, distances, difficulty levels, and durations Focused on the best - hikes, drives, and cycling tours Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, camping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, summer and winter activities, and hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Contextual insights give you a richer, more rewarding travel experience - history, geology, wildlife, conservation Over 47 full-color trail and park maps and full-color images throughout Useful features - Travel with Children, Clothing and Equipment, and Day and Overnight Hikes Covers Yellowstone National Park area, Mammoth Country, Roosevelt Country, Canyon Country, Lake Country, Norris, Geyser Country, Bechler Region, Grand Teton National Park area, Jackson and more. Lonely Planet covers must-see spots but also enables curious travelers to get off beaten paths to understand more of the culture of the places in which they find themselves. Bradley has lectured on Central Asia to the Royal Geographical Society and recently traveled across Asia in the footsteps of Marco Polo for a five-hour French-German TV documentary.

shows, it’s both of these and, more important, it’s a Petri dish, producing trends that end up influencing the rest of the country. Without Florida there would be no NASCAR, no Bettie Page pinups, no Glenn Beck radio rants, no USA Today , no “Stand Your Ground,” . It’s a state where the voters went for Barack Obama twice, yet elected a Tea Party candidate as governor. It attracts 90 million visitors a year, some drawn by its impressive natural beauty, others bewitched by its manmade fantasies. "This entertaining book will amuse and astonish Floridians and anybody interested in the absurdity of the Sunshine State or human nature in general."

With more than 200,000 visitors annually, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is among the most alluring wilderness areas in the country, unique because it is most often explored by canoe. Exploring the Boundary Waters is the most comprehensive trip planner to the BWCAW, giving travelers an overview of each entry point into the wilderness area as well as detailed descriptions of more than one hundred specific routes - including a ranking of their difficulty level and maps that feature the major waterways, portages, and the designated campsites.

Easy, moderate and difficult routes are color coded, while symbols quickly show kinds of vehicles allowed on each trail. A separate mileage log ties numbered locations along the route to a custom map featuring a detailed relief background.

The majority of the photographs have been donated by individuals to ensure that history does not lose these significant personalities, past or present, who left an imprint on their community. Carole L. Herrick writes for publications in the Washington, DC, area and has authored seven books, including Images of America: McLean.

Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded. Though the ‘stranger’ in the title is Knight, one closes the book with the sense that Knight, like all seers, is the only sane person in a world gone insane—that modern civilization has made us strangers to ourselves." —Jennifer Senior, The New York Times "Michael Finkel has done something magical with this profound book… [His] investigation runs deep, summoning…the human history of our own attempts to find meaning in a noisy world."

The product of two of Oklahoma’s foremost authorities on the history of the 46th state, Oklahoma: A History is the first comprehensive narrative to bring the story of the Sooner State to the threshold of its centennial. "Lively prose, vivid biographical vignettes, and artful synthesis make this book the best brief overview of Oklahoma ever written".

Check out Fodor's travel guides to Boston and Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. “Fodor’s is pitched a few notches higher….aimed at a fairly discerning traveler with an appetite for background and the occasional surprise.” – New York Times “The Fodor’s guides are notable for their ratings of sights, restaurants, shops, accommodations and attractions.” – Chicago Tribune.

Featuring 32 amazing road trips, from two-day escapes to two-week adventures, you can cruise historic Route 66 or be captivated by red-hued rock formations, all with your trusted travel companion. Lavish color and gorgeous photography throughout Itineraries and planning advice to pick the right tailored routes for your needs and interests Get around easily - 116 easy-to-read, full-color route maps, detailed directions Insider tips to get around like a local, avoid trouble spots and be safe on the road - local driving rules, parking, toll roads Essential info at your fingertips - hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, prices Honest reviews for all budgets - eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Useful features - including Stretch Your Legs, Detours, and Link Your Trip Covers Route 66, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Arizona deserts, Phoenix, Santa Fe, New Mexico's Enchanted Circle, Texas Hill Country, Big Bend, Austin, San Antonio, Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, Monument Valley, Moab, Utah, Denver and more. Authors: Written and researched by Lonely Planet, Amy C Balfour, Michael Benanav, Greg Benchwick, Lisa Dunford, Mariella Krause, Carolyn McCarthy and Ryan Ver Berkmoes.

Your round-trip ticket to the wildest, wackiest, most outrageous people, places, and things the Natural State has to offer! Wyatt and Janie Jones are Arkansas natives, whose love of their home state inspired them to write Hiking Arkansas , also published by Globe Pequot Press.

Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded. Though the ‘stranger’ in the title is Knight, one closes the book with the sense that Knight, like all seers, is the only sane person in a world gone insane—that modern civilization has made us strangers to ourselves." —Jennifer Senior, The New York Times "Michael Finkel has done something magical with this profound book… [His] investigation runs deep, summoning…the human history of our own attempts to find meaning in a noisy world."

The author skillfully weaves. physical description, history, and personal anecdote, whether he is. exploring the stark beauty of the high plains of northeastern New. Mexico or the remote border region of the boot heel. Eaton, who works for the U.S. Department of the Interior in Sante Fe, offers ten stories written in the 1980s and 1990s about people and places in and around New Mexico. His is not the New Mexico of Santa Fe and Taos but rather the more remote state of Chaco Canyon, where he served as a ranger for five years, Quemado of the "Lightning Field" in the title, and Abiquiu, where there is a Benedictine monastery.

Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her. Amazon Best Books of the Month, March 2012: At age 26, following the death of her mother, divorce, and a run of reckless behavior, Cheryl Strayed found herself alone near the foot of the Pacific Crest Trail--inexperienced, over-equipped, and desperate to reclaim her life. While readers looking for adventure or a naturalist's perspective may be distracted by the emotional odyssey at the core of the story, Wild vividly describes the grueling life of the long-distance hiker, the ubiquitous perils of the PCT, and its peculiar community of wanderers. But Strayed doesn't want sympathy, and her confident prose stands on its own, deftly pulling both threads into a story that inhabits a unique riparian zone between wilderness tale and personal-redemption memoir. Two months before Wild was published I stood on a Mexican beach at sunset with my family assisting dozens of baby turtles on their stumbling journey across the sand, then watching as they disappeared into the sea. Echoing the ever-popular search for wilderness salvation by Chris McCandless (Back to the Wild, 2011) and every other modern-day disciple of Thoreau, Strayed tells the story of her emotional devastation after the death of her mother and the weeks she spent hiking the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail. As her family, marriage, and sanity go to pieces, Strayed drifts into spontaneous encounters with other men, to the consternation of her confused husband, and eventually hits rock bottom while shooting up heroin with a new boyfriend. Woefully unprepared (she fails to read about the trail, buy boots that fit, or pack practically), she relies on the kindness and assistance of those she meets along the way, much as McCandless did.

Hiking Kentucky's Red River Gorge is the definitive guide to trails in the Red River Gorge Geologic Area, Natural Bridge State Park, and Clifty Wilderness. Currently, he is an MFA candidate in the Warren Wilson College Program for Writers, and has been awarded writing residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Montana Artists Refuge, Fishtrap, and the Oregon State University Spring Creek Project.

**Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Autobiography** * Included in. President Obama’s 2016 Summer Reading List* A deeply rendered self-portrait of a lifelong surfer by the acclaimed New Yorker writer. As Finnegan’s travels take him ever farther afield, he becomes an improbable anthropologist: unpicking the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissecting the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, navigating the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little understood art. Frantically juggling work and family, he chases his enchantment through Long Island ice storms and obscure corners of Madagascar. In other words, it is, like Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, a semi-dangerous book, one that persuades young men…to trade in their office jobs in order to roam the world, to feel the ocean’s power, and chase the waves.” —The Paris Review Daily “Fans of [Finnegan’s] writing have been waiting eagerly for his surfing memoir…Well, Barbarian Days is here. )…A lyrical and enormously rewarding read…Finnegan’s enchantment takes us to some luminous and unsettling places — on both the edge of the ocean, and the frontiers of the surfing life.” —San Diego Union-Tribune “Barbarian Days gleams with precise, often lyrical recollections of the most memorable waves [Finnegan has] encountered…He carefully mines his surfing exploits for broader, hard-won insights on his childhood, his most intense friendships and romances, his political education, his career. Still, Finnegan considerately shows himself paying the price of admission in a few near drownings, and these are among the most electrifying moments in the book…There are too many breathtaking, original things in Barbarian Days to do more than mention here—observations about surfing that have simply never been made before, or certainly never so well.” —The New York Times Book Review “Without a doubt, the finest surf book I’ve ever read… All this technical mastery and precise description goes hand in hand with an unabashed, infectious earnestness. Finnegan has certainly written a surfing book for surfers, but on a more fundamental level, ‘Barbarian Days’ offers a cleareyed vision of American boyhood. “Which is precisely what makes the propulsive precision of Finnegan’s writing so surprising and revelatory… Finnegan’s treatment of surfing never feels like performance. Through the sheer intensity of his descriptive powers and the undeniable ways in which surfing has shaped his life, Barbarian Days is an utterly convincing study in the joy of treating seriously an unserious thing…As Finnegan demonstrates, surfing, like good writing, is an act of vigilant noticing. That pairing makes Barbarian Days exceptional in the notoriously foamy genre of surf lit: a hefty, heavyweight tour de force, overbrimming with sublime lyrical passages that Finnegan drops as effortlessly as he executed his signature ‘drop-knee cutback’ in the breaks off Waikiki…Reading this guy on the subject of waves and water is like reading Hemingway on bullfighting; William Burroughs on controlled substances; Updike on adultery…Finnegan is a virtuoso wordsmith, but the juice propelling this memoir is wrung from the quest that shaped him…A piscine, picaresque coming-of-age story, seen through the gloss resin coat of a surfboard.” —Sports Illustrated Overflowing with vivid descriptions of waves caught and waves missed, of disappointments and ecstasies and gargantuan curling tubes that encircle riders like cathedrals of pure stained glass…These paragraphs, with their mix of personal remembrance and subcultural taxonomies, tend to be as elegant and pellucid as the breakers they immortalize…This memoir is one you can ride all the way to shore.” —Entertainment Weekly “[A] sweeping, glorious memoir…Oh, the rides, they are incandescent…I’d sooner press this book upon on a nonsurfer, in part because nothing I’ve read so accurately describes the feeling of being stoked or the despair of being held under. But also because while it is a book about ‘A Surfing Life’…it’s also about a writer’s life and, even more generally, a quester’s life, more carefully observed and precisely rendered than any I’ve read in a long time.” —Los Angeles Times “Gorgeously written and intensely felt…With Mr. Finnegan’s bravura memoir, the surfing bookshelf is dramatically enriched. He makes surfing seem as foreign and simultaneously as intimate a sport as possible…Surfing is the backbone of the book, but Finnegan’s relationships to people, not waves, form its flesh…[A] deep blue story of one man’s lifelong enchantment.” —Boston Globe “Finnegan’s epic adventure, beautifully told, is much more than the story of a boy and his wave, even if surfing serves as the thumping heartbeat of his life.” —Dallas Morning News “That’s always Finnegan’s M.O. Finnegan is a sober, straightforward author, but the level of detail, emotion, and insight he achieves is unparalleled…A must-read for all surfers — not just because of its unblinking prose and subtle wit, but because it’s the only book that properly details what it’s like to cultivate both an award-winning career and a dedicated surfing life.” —Eastern Surf Magazine “Finnegan describes, with shimmering detail, his adventures riding waves on five continents. It’s a pleasure to paddle into and makes for a hell of a ride.” —The Millions “As it progresses the whole book turns into a portal…It’s tempting to say that Barbarian Days will bring readers as close as they’ll get to the surf, short of actual surfing. Finnegan recaptures the waves lost and found, the euphoria, the danger…the allure.” —BBC.com “Panoramic and fascinating…The core of the book is a surfing chronicle, and Finnegan possesses impeccable short-board bona fides…A revealing and magisterial account of a beautiful addiction.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Like that powerful, glassy wave, great books on surfing come few and far between.

Maryland and Delaware Off the Beaten Path features the things travelers and locals want to see and experience––if only they knew about them. Whether you’re a visitor or a local looking for something different, let Maryland and Delaware Off the Beaten Path show you the Old Line and First States you never knew existed.

In these accounts, written with sensitivity as cautionary tales about what to do and what not to do in one of our wildest national parks, Whittlesey recounts deaths ranging from tragedy to folly—from being caught in a freak avalanche to the goring of a photographer who just got a little too close to a bison. Behind the gripping adventure, drama, and heartbreak of the stories told in this uniquely authoritative book are deep lessons—not only in personal responsibility but in the role of national parks in our society. Lee Whittlesey's compelling study of Yellowstone fatalities wisely reminds us of both the price and the pricelessness of protecting wild nature. While guides may wish to discuss the role of wolves or forest fires in a wilderness ecosystem, their passengers too often just want stories of the misfortune of their fellow travelers—and this is the seminal work on the subject. The sheer weight of new material added to bring this second edition up-to-date is a clear indication that the Yellowstone landscape continues to demand both our awe and our respect.

Completely revised and updated with brand-new restaurants, Eat Dat New Orleans is the ultimate guide to America's best food city. Michael Murphy, a book publishing professional, has been a vice president at Random House, publisher of William Morrow, and founder of the literary agency Max & Co. By day two of his first visit to New Orleans in 1983, he knew he was home.