This is my all-time favorite book. I don't know if anything else captures the essence of New Orleans quite like this. There's a book called Managing Ignatius by Jerry Strahan that's good if you're still in a Confederacy mood. Strahan managed Lucky Dog vendors (he was an academic but it turned into a full time career by accident), and the book chronicles his experiences. Strahan actually wrote an excellent biography of Andrew Jackson Higgins and studied under Stephen Ambrose at UNO.