The esteemed quarterly Lousiana Cultural Vistas has a thoughtful review of Last of the Red Hot Poppas in its latest issue. Check it out.

One other reason to check it out: Vistas is the first publication I've seen in a long time to use the Nxt Book technology to replicate a paper publication online. I remember how this was billed as the next breakout application for online publishing years ago, and it's kind of fun to zoom in and out and turn the pages of the magazine. But for whatever reason — perhaps it is too stuck in the traditional paradigm of flipping pages and paper-based layout? — we rarely see this application used.

The one thing Nxt Book does that I like is allow the reader to make random connections, like when you read the newspaper and jump from one topic to the next. Online news reading tends to focus you — the more you drill down into a subject, the less likely you are to find something interesting of a completely different nature — and it is difficult to jump from a piece on Keith Richards talking about what he did with his late father's ashes to the influence of the Mormon church on American politics, as I did this morning while reading The Seattle Times. Of course, this may not be an experience readers need to have, and it may go the way of album cover art — fondly remembered but not essential.