A Lesson Before Dying

Article in Adult Fiction, African American, Big Read, Historical, and Themes categories.

Other Works by Ernest Gaines

• The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (audio/video)
• Catherine Carmier
• A Gathering of Old Men
• In My Father's House (audio)
• Mozart and Leadbelly: Stories and Essays compiled and edited by Marcia Gaudet and Reggie Young.
• Of Love and Dust

African American Churches

• The Black Church in the African-American Experience by C. Eric Lincoln & Lawrence H. Mamiya
• The Negro Church in America by E. Franklin Frazier
• The Black Church Since Frazier by C. Eric Lincoln

African Americans Education

• A History of Negro Education in the South; From 1619 to the Present by Henry Allen Bullock
• Julius Rosenwald : the Man Who Built Sears, Roebuck and Advanced the Cause of Black Education in the American South by Peter M. Ascoli
• Self-Taught : African American Education in Slavery and Freedom by Heather Andrea Williams
• Jefferson School Oral History Project (narrative)

Blues Music History and Criticism

• Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey by Bill Wyman with Richard Havers
• The Blues from Robert Johnson to Robert Gray by Tony Russell
• Blues Legacies and Black Feminism : Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Y. Davis
• The History of the Blues by Francis Davis
• Portrait of the Blues by Paul Trynka ; photographs by Val Wilmer
• The Spirituals and the Blues : an Interpretation by James H. Cone
• This House on Fire : the Story of the Blues by Craig Awmiller

Blues Music (video recordings)

• The Blues: a Musical Journey Vulcan Productions ; Road Movies
• Blues master vols. I, II, and III / B.B. King ; produced by Steven Reed ; directed by Allie Eberhardt
• The Story of the Blues produced by Jordi Vall Escriu
• Blues Music
• American Blues
• Blues Everywhere I Go by Odetta
• Mississippi Blues
• The Turning Point John Mayall
• The Ultimate Collection, 1948-1990 John Lee Hooker
• Bessie Smith
• Billie's blues Billie Holiday
• Blues & Roots Charles Mingus
• The Legend of Blind Joe Death John Fahey

Capital Punishment

• Choosing Mercy: a Mother of Murder Victims Pleads to End the Death Penalty by Antoinette Bosco.
• Crime and Capital Punishment by Robert H. Loeb, Jr.
• Dead Man Walking: an Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States by Helen Prejean.
• Death Penalties: the Supreme Court's Obstacle Course by Raoul Berger.
• The Death Penalty: Opposing Viewpoints by David L. Bender & Bruno Leone, series editors; Carol Wekesser, book editor.
• Don't Kill in Our Names: Families of Murder Victims Speak Out Against the Death Penalty by Rachel King.
• The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder, and the Search for Justice in the American South by Gilbert King.
• Just Revenge: Costs and Consequences of the Death Penalty by Mark Costanzo
• The Last Face You'll Ever See: the Private Life of the American Death Penalty by Ivan Solotaroff.
• Legal Lynching: Racism, Injustice, and the Death Penalty by Jesse Jackson, with Jesse Jackson, Jr.
• Teens and the Death Penalty by Elaine Landau.
• Ultimate Punishment: a Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty by Scott Turow.
• Who Owns Death?: Capital Punishment, the American Conscience, and the End of Executions by Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell.
• The Wrong Men: America's Epidemic of Wrongful Death Row Convictions by Stanley Cohen.

Louisiana Style Cookery

• Chef Paul Prudhomme's Fork in the Road: a Different Direction in Cooking, photography by Paul Rico
• Crescent City Cooking: Unforgettable Recipes from Susan Spicer's New Orleans by Susan Spicer, with Paula Disbrowe
• Emeril's Delmonico: a New Orleans Restaurant with a Past by Emeril Lagasse
• Emeril's New New Orleans Cooking by Emeril Lagasse and Jessie Tirsch ; photographs by Brian Smale
• Justin Wilson Looking Back: a Cajun Cookbook, photographs by David King Gleason and Bill Cooksey
• The New Orleans Cookbook: Creole, Cajun, and Louisiana French Recipes Past and Present by Rima Collin & Richard Collin
• The Prudhomme Family Cookbook: Old-Time Louisiana Recipes by the eleven Prudhomme brothers and sisters and Paul Prudhomme
• The Trout Point Lodge Cookbook: Creole Cuisine from New Orleans to Nova Scotia by Daniel Abel, Charles Leary, Vaughn Perret, photographs by Wayne Barrett, foreword by John Besh

Death row inmates - Fiction

• Hour of the Cat by Peter Quinn
• The Law of Second Chances by James Sheehan.
• Love Her Madly by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith
• Reversible Errors by Scott Turow
• Blow Fly by Patricia Cornwell
• Conviction by Richard North Patterson
• The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer.
• Gallows Thief by Bernard Cornwell
• The Green Mile by Stephen King

Prisons - Fiction

• Derailed by James Siegel
• End of Story by Peter Abrahams
• Monster by Walter Dean Myers; illustrations by Christopher Myers
• Pale Horse Coming by Stephen Hunter
• The Session by Judith Kelman

Prisoners - Fiction

• The Gypsy Man by Robert Bausch
• Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
• The Interview Room by Roderick Anscombe
• The Keep by Jennifer Egan
• Last Shot by Gregg Hurwitz
• The Lord of Death by Eliot Pattison
• The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
• The Night Stalker: by James Swain
• The Order of Things by Lynne Hinton.
• The Summons by John Grisham
• Controlled Burn : Stories of Prison, Crime, and Men by Scott Wolven.

Radio Programs

We have an unbelievable number of radio programs --63+ in the catalog. Here’s just a minor sample

• Radio's Golden Age: the Programs and the Personalities by Frank Buxton and Bill Owen
• Letter from America, 1946-2004 by Alistair Cooke
• Agatha Christie's Casebook Mysteries (sound recording)
• The Best of 1945 (sound recording)
• Old-Time Radio's Greatest Mysteries (sound recording)
• Stop the Press! (sound recording: tales of reporters on the radio)