[.ca] Insiders' Guide to New Orleans, 3rd (ISBN 0762734566)

It is Blanche, it is a great guide book:
If New Orleans is a city that easily evokes the utterances of Tennesee William's Blanche Dubois , the New Insider's Guide New Orleans by Gaffney and Retz certainly is a kindness to strangers visiting to city. Written in a lively and fun to read style, the authors take you on a lively tour of the famous and infamous aspects of the Big Easy. Locals will find the book a way to explore the underpinnings of a city they may have too quickly come to take for granted. Like the city itself, this guidebook is an easy read to curl up with (to paraphrase Blanche) on a long rainy afternoon when an hour isn't just an hour, but a little piece of eternity dropped in your hand." I highly recommend this guidebook. --Candace

A Giant Step Forward:
The Insiders Guide to New Orleans is a giant step forward in the city guidebook field as well as the best guide I have found to New Orleans. The authors put history in its true place as an introduction to one of the world's most fascinating cities and then present the destination in fine style as experts on the city, its attractions, its almost embarrassing riches in restaurants, its quirkiness and more. As a resident of the Big Easy (who also happens to be a professional travel writer) I found fifty things I didn't already know. Unlike many guidebooks which are either on-paper cheering sections or, alternatively, a drab presentation of facts, open hours and prices, this guide is a delightful and informative must-read for anyone every thinking of escaping to what can be considered almost another country. Five stars for The Insider's Guide to New Orleans by Becky Retz and James Gaffney.