Best book on New Orleans History

I found this one very interesting. It has a little bit of everything.

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans By Gary Krist

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I found this one very interesting. It has a little bit of everything.

Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans By Gary Krist

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Looked this up on Amazon and immediately got a pop up for a $5 gift card towards a book for Kindle and this book was $5. Score!

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Bienville's Dilemma by Campanella is fantastic. Actually, all of his stuff is worth buying (for personal use or to give as a gift).

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Seconded.

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Frenchmen Desire Good Children

Kind of a different sort of history book, follows the line of the development of New Orleans and doesn't read as a history book, which may or may not be what you are looking for depending on who you are giving it to.

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I agree. It tells the history of New Orleans by giving the origins of the street names. It started out as John Churchill Chase's notes for after-dinner speeches he would give around town starting in the late 1940s through his death in the 1970s. He updated it quite a few times. The other good thing is it is filled with his own cartoons.

A short one, if you can find one, is Mel Leavitt's A Short History of New Orleans is just that, short, but SO well-written and eloquent. This is out of print and highly prized.

I have been reading, Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture.
It is interesting but it is about a very specific bit of New Orleans history.