The Times Picayune's Susan Larson has written a beautiful review of Do You Know ... today.

Here's a snippet:

Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? not only captures the valued and unique facets of our culture; it provides a kind of emotional prism, ways of looking at this time of love and rage, fear and anger, despair and fierce — and I mean fierce — hope.

This is a great review, but if you haven't seen the paper and are only able to read it online, you might not realize how great. In the paper, the review covers about three-quarters of a page. The print "View in Rear of St. Louis Cathedral" from page 53 of the book is reproduced here, as is the cover. Running across the very top of the page is a quote from the book: "'New Orleanians know that a culture is not just something that you look at or something you eat. In this city, culture is something you live.' — David Rutledge." And below that is a different headline from the online version in large type: Defining Moments. Finally, our reading at The Saturn is plugged in a thin column of events running down one side of the page.

Of course, I'm getting this all secondhand, but that gives you an idea of how the book is playing in New Orleans.

This is a first for us: We've never been reviewed in a major North American daily, and it has been one of my modest goals with this launch to make sure that at least one paper would pay attention to us. Thanks to Susan Larson's thoughtful review, my goals for the book are getting a little less modest.