Noted journalist and author Ken Wells is in town today for a book signing and reading at Barnes & Noble. The event begins at 6:30 p.m., with the reading at 7 p.m.
Since Hurricane Katrina’s destructive winds and flooding three years ago, books about the catastrophe have tended to focus on New Orleans or the government’s failure before, during and after the storm. Until now. Wells’ The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous: Fighting to Save a Way of Life in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina is a deeply rooted personal narrative about a family of Louisiana shrimp boat captains and their neighbors in St. Bernard Parish.
Wells, who now lives in Manhattan, grew up in Bayou Black and is senior editor for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, having served as writer/editor at the Wall Street Journal (where two of his writers won the Pulitzer Prize) for more than two decades. “Ken Wells is first and foremost a great reporter,” says University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Don Ranly. “Nothing escapes him, and yet every detail he includes counts. This book is literary journalism at its best.”