The Reading Life With Mark Childress And The Community Book Center

By Susan Larson

Published July 2, 2013 at 1:41 PM CDT

This week on The Reading Life: We check in with that wonderful comic novelist Mark Childress (Crazy in Alabama), who has a new book, What It Means to Miss New Orleans: Three Essays After Katrina.

We’ll also talk with founder Vera Warren Williams and manager "Mama" Jennifer Turner of Community Book Center, which is celebrating 30 years in business with Home Fest, July 5-7. That makes it one of the oldest African-American bookstores in the country. What an amazing achievement! And Susan will have some thoughts about the pleasures of summer reading.

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Susan Larson

The Reading Life in 2010, Susan Larson was the book editor for The New Orleans Times-Picayune from 1988-2009. She has served on the boards of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival and the New Orleans Public Library. She is the founder of the New Orleans chapter of the Women's National Book Association, which presents the annual Diana Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction.. In 2007, she received the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities lifetime achievement award for her contributions to the literary community. She is also the author of The Booklover's Guide to New Orleans. If you run into her in a local bookstore or library, she'll be happy to suggest something you should read. She thinks New Orleans is the best literary town in the world, and she reads about a book a day.

See stories by Susan Larson