Debra Shriver tells the story of finding and restoring a house in the French Quarter of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina. Part love letter, part scrapbook; readers are given a rare tour of this enigmatic city. The book is a cultural guidebook and historical reference of America's most European city, featuring the work of more than 20 photographers and artists. Chapters highlight food and entertaining, decorating, gardens, landscapes, local traditions, interiors, and architecture.
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About the Author
Debra Shriver, a 12th generation Southerner, Francophile, passionate preservationist and jazz devotee, is a media executive with Hearst Corporation in New York City where she oversees PR and marketing for its magazines and media divisions. She lives in New York City and New Orleans with her husband.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
My first meeting with Debra Shriver tested my sense of reality. As the chief communications officer for Hearst, she had the big office on a high floor. She had the clean desk I always associate with the truly powerful. And there were pictures of Deb with the mighty.
But her professionalism seemed to go only as far as was absolutely necessary. Deb's hair was too short to be spiky, and it was unclear to me how much was blonde and how much was white. She didn't power-dress. And almost every surface not devoted to Hearst was covered with personal photographs and souvenirs from her travels, artifacts from her Southern heritage, mementos from an earlier stage in her career.
Slowly, I got it: Debra Shriver's an... original.
I've come to know Deb better since then, both in her Hearst role and as a neighbor, and I think I'm a reliable witness here: She's smart, incisive, supportive --- and, unlike so many people with ever bigger titles and ever smaller minds, she gets the joke.
One problem: she disappeared.
Not exactly disappeared. But starting a few years ago, I never saw her and her husband walking their dogs on weekends --- the Shrivers had decamped to New Orleans.
She still has the big office. But every spare minute is now spent in New Orleans, where --- three weeks after Katrina --- the Shrivers bought a house.
And what a house! It's not the centerpiece of "Stealing Magnolias: Tales from a New Orleans Courtyard." But the photographs that dot her beautiful --- and beautifully art-directed --- book testify to a rare kind of taste: personal, thoughtful, and not at all "fancy."
Yes, a decorator was involved, but Deb clearly drove the bus. And that sure sense of direction can be found in her account of her love affair with New Orleans and, more to the point, her New Orleans.
Although Shriver was born in Alabama, settling in New Orleans represents a kind of coming home after seeing every chic city in the world, going to all the cool parties, meeting all the powerful people.
But that's not the whole story.
New Orleans --- a city of contrasts, a city both elegant and vulgar, "Europe with heat" --- wasn't her final destination. She met the place head-on, then edited it so it formed a personal refuge.
Who chooses a "dream house" in a city "that's eighty percent underwater?" Easy: someone who buys most of a bin of silk tassels in a Paris hardware store --- and uses them as the starting point for the decoration of her New Orleans house. Someone who has any number of upstairs bedrooms that have been repurposed so guests can't stay with her. Someone who appreciates monogrammed linen, adds kumquats and Cointreau to her champagne, buys "Red Brick Dust" at the voodoo shop.
Touring suggestions, decorating ideas, recipes, photographs far too artistic for a book about a city, and, linking them all, Deb Shriver's gossamer prose --- "Stealing Magnolias" is hallucinatory in its appeal. It's worth the loss of the chats we used to have on upper Madison Avenue for the world to have this book.
But her professionalism seemed to go only as far as was absolutely necessary. Deb's hair was too short to be spiky, and it was unclear to me how much was blonde and how much was white. She didn't power-dress. And almost every surface not devoted to Hearst was covered with personal photographs and souvenirs from her travels, artifacts from her Southern heritage, mementos from an earlier stage in her career.
Slowly, I got it: Debra Shriver's an... original.
I've come to know Deb better since then, both in her Hearst role and as a neighbor, and I think I'm a reliable witness here: She's smart, incisive, supportive --- and, unlike so many people with ever bigger titles and ever smaller minds, she gets the joke.
One problem: she disappeared.
Not exactly disappeared. But starting a few years ago, I never saw her and her husband walking their dogs on weekends --- the Shrivers had decamped to New Orleans.
She still has the big office. But every spare minute is now spent in New Orleans, where --- three weeks after Katrina --- the Shrivers bought a house.
And what a house! It's not the centerpiece of "Stealing Magnolias: Tales from a New Orleans Courtyard." But the photographs that dot her beautiful --- and beautifully art-directed --- book testify to a rare kind of taste: personal, thoughtful, and not at all "fancy."
Yes, a decorator was involved, but Deb clearly drove the bus. And that sure sense of direction can be found in her account of her love affair with New Orleans and, more to the point, her New Orleans.
Although Shriver was born in Alabama, settling in New Orleans represents a kind of coming home after seeing every chic city in the world, going to all the cool parties, meeting all the powerful people.
But that's not the whole story.
New Orleans --- a city of contrasts, a city both elegant and vulgar, "Europe with heat" --- wasn't her final destination. She met the place head-on, then edited it so it formed a personal refuge.
Who chooses a "dream house" in a city "that's eighty percent underwater?" Easy: someone who buys most of a bin of silk tassels in a Paris hardware store --- and uses them as the starting point for the decoration of her New Orleans house. Someone who has any number of upstairs bedrooms that have been repurposed so guests can't stay with her. Someone who appreciates monogrammed linen, adds kumquats and Cointreau to her champagne, buys "Red Brick Dust" at the voodoo shop.
Touring suggestions, decorating ideas, recipes, photographs far too artistic for a book about a city, and, linking them all, Deb Shriver's gossamer prose --- "Stealing Magnolias" is hallucinatory in its appeal. It's worth the loss of the chats we used to have on upper Madison Avenue for the world to have this book.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
An elegantly written, gloriously photographed, yet down-to-earth view of the special pull of New Orleans. Best to be there for a visit, but if you can't, the food, music, architecture, and voodoo are still to be had in Debra Shriver's "Stealing Magnolias." A southern girl who made it big in the urban east, Ms. Shriver's heart has long been in New Orleans, so she and her husband Jerry bought their home on Dumaine Street three weeks after Katrina as part of their own contribution to bringing this magical city back. Far better than a guidebook at giving you the sights and smells of a one-of-a-kind metropolis.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By VisualV
Amazon Verified Purchase
I purchased this book and have already given two copies as gifts. For anyone who loves New Orleans, this book is a must for their library. Debra Shriver has captured the charm of the city as well as gives the reader a visual feast.
I obviously recommend it having already bought three copies!
I obviously recommend it having already bought three copies!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful book
This book captures the wonder of New Orleans and it is a beautiful coffee table book. Great photography and I look forward to visiting the city again soon.
Published 5 months ago by Rhea M. Hayes
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite!
The other reviewers have done a great job describing the book. I won't duplicate that here. Instead, I will just say that I have shelves (! Read more
Published 16 months ago by Jennifer Ward
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Expatriate Southerner's Song of Love
Stealing Magnolias: Tales from a New Orleans Courtyard by Debra Shriver offers an intimate exchange with this most magical and mysterious of American cities. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Southern Cosmopolitan
5.0 out of 5 stars
Better Than a Beignet
There's nowhere like New Orleans and this book sums up as best as any all the ways that's true. Praline recipes, table settings, garden district snapshots, exquisite interior... Read more
Published on April 3, 2011 by C. Weiss
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love it!
What can I say? I love this book... I picked it up at Rizzoli on 57th Street and was entranced by the beautiful photographs of a place I want to visit. Soon. Read more
Published on February 1, 2011 by A Reader's Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stealing Magnolias in magical New Orleans............
Every now and then, one is fortunate enough to find the perfect book to give as a gift.......after thoroughly enjoying it oneself! Read more
Published on January 31, 2011 by travelbrit
5.0 out of 5 stars
Impressing Pictures
Great book with lots of information and personal stories. The best are the fantastic pictures that make you wish to live in NO
Published on November 19, 2010 by TSOS
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