Florida Books

This creative book, written by a diverse talented group of five, offers short stories, excerpts, essays and poems. The collection leaves no seed unturned in sprouting a bouquet of emotions and genres making it a delight for every reader.

The book is broken down into six categories. Each category is as delectable as the next. I found the entire book and all the writers appealing. I especially liked "The Elevator" by Estelle Lipp and the "Butcher and the Blonde" by Nancy Wayman Deutsch. The poems in the section Poems from the Back Pocket are fresh and enchanting.

This book is for all who would enjoy a sparkle of sunshine in their day. Florida Shorts is a chance to discover the dashing writing abilities of five first rate writers. Well done.

Sherry Russell
Midwest Book Review

The picture on the cover of "Florida Shorts" is your first indication that you are about to embark on a wonderful journey. There are five pairs of shorts, two male and three female, hanging on a clothes line strung between two oak trees, with a stand of moss-laden live oaks in the background. Off in the distance is a typical central Florida lake. The metaphor is obvious.
The anthology is a delightful collection of short literary pieces by a talented group of up-and-coming Florida authors. A few have received a number of literary awards and the others are new but talented writers. Two are natives Floridians and three are there by choice. Included are short stories, excerpts, essays and poems.
Some of the "shorts" will scare you and some of the "shorts" will make you smile. Others will make you laugh. Some will make you think and some will take you on a thrill ride.
There is something here for everyone.
I especially like the warm and creative stories about animals, "The Bus," The Summer Visitor" and "The Twilight Invaders".
"The Butcher and the Blonde" evokes memories of an old love story called "Abie's Irish Rose," although with a wonderful and uplifting surprise ending.
I'm not sure I want to go through what Drew encounters in order to get that "piece of pie" in the story of the same name.
I loved the pieces on growing up and coming of age. And for those interested in the darker side of life, "On the E Train" and "The Perfect Couple" will more than fill the bill.
A few of the memoirs are moving presentations of personal journeys.
The poetry brought me from tears to cheers and back again. It is well above the norm of what is being written today.
"Florida Shorts" reads quickly and is well worth you time.

Chuck Dowling, author. See website www.chuckdowling.com

this book is a must have for poeple looking for fun on a budget. State parks are very inexpensive and offer lots to see and do or you can just find one to lounge in the sun and do nothing. We use this to plan family and scout outings.

This book is our favorite guide to exploring Florida's natural wonders, and there are many. It gives the most useful information of any I've found. If you would rather see real nature instead of fake (Disney animation) this is the book.
We keep it in our RV and plan trips with it.
What amazes me is that the author is from Washington state and knows so much about Florida.
The only thing that could make it better are two things: color photos and a better map of the parks with an overlay showing both major cities as well as the parks, to give a better sense of where they are located. It would be too crowded to put them all on one map so an overlay would be preferable. I had to use a car map in conjunction with the book map to plan trips, no big deal.
Just got back from Manatee Springs and Cedar Key. Florida springs are totally cool (double-ent. intended).

Florida State University is where I'll be in a few months! I have my parents to thank for letting me have free reign to where I'm going and Colleg Prowler for putting out these guides. They rank stuff like academics, safety and security, greek life, drug scene etc using the grading scale A-F. Florida State looks pretty good in this scale, and has enough bars and clubs near the university to make my decision final.

Peace.

I have to say, of all the different ways to learn about potential colleges, this guidebook offers the best way to find out if a school is right for you. I actually visited FSU, along with several other schools, and while a campus visit is nice, it doesn't necessarily give you the low-down on what being a student there is REALLY like. CollegeProwler hired a student to write the book, based on interviews with other students, so there isn't any of the hard sell you get from a campus recruiter. I highly recommend these guidebooks to anyone who is planning to attend college.

This is a terrific book. Bruce Hunt takes his readers on a trip through time to see how Florida's landmarks have changed. He is a wonderful author with a keen sense of capturing the places he visits. Anyone with any sense of Florida history will love this book!

I've always enjoyed Bruce Hunt's storytelling skills, especially his ability to take me to colorful places he has visited for his other travel books.

Now we have the same easy storytelling style,interesting history, and it's a work of art too!

Gorgeous new photos, interesting historical photos, and lots of little known facts.

Fabulous guide to wildlife viewing areas in Florida. It led me to to many places not found in any other books. The directions are clear and concise, and the site descriptions are well-written. I spent an afternoon at one extraordinary, magical place where I was literally tripping over the local wildlife. As I was about to leave, the first person I had seen all day came up to me and asked me where I lived, since this was a place only the locals knew about. She was astounded that I was from out-of-town. Sure enough, the log book, which only showed a few visitors per day, had no one from out-of-state but me in it! I just hope that these areas remain as unspoiled as they are now. This book made my trip to Florida worthwhile!

When you are next lucky enough to find yourself in sections of the Florida peninsula still green and grassy or blue and wavy, you'll have a sharper chance of spotting limpkins, roseate spoonbills, plovers, manatees and alligators and hundreds of species more, even mice, with this perky pink guidebook in your backpack. Florida Wildlife Viewing Guide takes you to the most popular and also the least-known local, state and national preserves where you can make like a Florida (wild) native.

I've lived in Florida for over 30 years and have just discovered new bike trails - only miles from my home - after reading through Florida's Fabulous Trail Guide. My friends and I have already planned two biking trips since I bought the book two weeks ago! The photos are inspiring too!

This book brings Florid's Trails to life with many beautiful color pitures that make you want to be there! Full of excellent information about where you can hike, bike, and ride horses in the state of Florida.

Full of lush color photographs that bring the different parks to life. Everything is covered from Pensacola, in the far west panhandle, to the keys.

This book allows you to have a first hand view of what the scenary looks like and actual pictures of the many trails and waterways thoughout the state.

If you like to ride bikes off road, hike in unspoiled wilderness areas, or ride horses in the backwoods this book is a must have. You could spend the next ten years just visiting the sites listed in this publication.

Or just look at the awesome pictures and dream of being there...

I read this book a few years back after spotting it in the library in Kissimmee. I've always been a Florida history buff, having been born and raised in nearby Oviedo, and after thumbing through the pages I decided to check it out. Let me tell you... I could not put it down! It held my attention from start to finish! After reading it, I ventured out to old cemeteries around the area to find these people mentioned in the book. I should have bought the book back then but now I'm doing so to add to my collection. A great read for anyone who wants to learn about the life and hardships of our Florida pioneers!!

This is a "must have" for anyone interested in Florida history, as it is the most thorough account written about the infamous Barber-Mizell feud--a feud which only really came to an end when the author (a descendant of the Mizells) married her first husband (a Barber).

The narrative is based on family tales and traditions passed down by both sides to their living descendants. But, Mrs. Shearhart also backs-up the stories with surviving documentation. And, she fearlessly includes some facts and revelations that previous generations may have been unwilling to put in print.

I discovered the Highwaymen on NetFlix, was really blown away with their colorful, detailed work and techniques. A group of Black artists sold their work by the roadside, sometimes door to door and other various inventive ways to earn a living. This is an amazing book and story of American art. Their work is now worth much, much more than they ever got on the roadsides. Track down a video and surf the web for more information about the group which included one woman who may still be painting today. Bob Beatty, a Florida writer became their champion, helping to save their work and history.

Paintings by the Florida Highwaymen are prized by collectors today, but their story is about much more than art. The name refers to African American artists, mostly from the Fort Pierce area, who painted landscapes and made a living selling them, door-to-door, to businesses and individuals throughout the state from the mid-1950s through the 1980s.

It was not a formal movement and represented no "official" group, yet the Highwaymen thrived as artists and entrepreneurs through their sheer determination to succeed as painters and not as laborers in citrus groves, their expected social role. They honed techniques to rapidly produce their paintings and developed strategies to sell and market their artwork outside of the formal world of art galleries and exhibitions. Their story is one of African Americans who carved out unique economic opportunities despite the social conditions of the Jim Crow South.

View over 65 Highwaymen paintings, many never-before-published, in this catalog written to accompany the Orange County Regional History Center's exhibit, FLORIDA'S HIGHWAYMEN: LEGENDARY LANDSCAPES. Discover this uniquely Florida story through photos of the artists then and now, images of their world, and first-person accounts and primary source research on their lives and times.

The story of Florida's Native American heritage receives close and informative examination through a series of paintings paired with discussions by Jerald T. Milanich, who surveys the vanished cultures and archaeological relics of bygone eras. The pairing of a painter with an archaeologist produces a wonderful blend of scholarship and visual color displays: whether using Florida's Lost Tribes as an art library addition or a survey of Florida culture, it's a unique acquisition indeed.

The middle section is a gallery of the artist Morris's realistic colorful paintings of members of different tribes of Florida's Native Americans in daily activities in natural settings. In the paintings, their clothing and in some cases the dwellings and weapons, utensils, and other objects are shown. Below each of the many paintings, Morris tells about its subject; the activity pictured as a part of the broader society, including in some cases its historical reference; and details such as feathers for ornament or material of pieces of clothing. The text of the book is anthropological and historical material on Florida's number of tribes. Readers will find there were more than the Seminoles who became known mainly for their conflict against the U. S. in the 1800s. Both the paintings and the text cover Florida's tribes from pre-Columbian times to today. With Milanich's text relating all sorts of interesting facts about varied tribes in a readable style and Morris's bright pictures

Dr. Colburn earns his reputation as one of Florida's premier scholars in this succincnt but highly informative work on some of the so-called "megatrends" that have fundamentally altered the course of the Sunshine State's development in the last 100 years. Essentially, this book discusses how Florida - at the end of the Civil War the most economically and culturally blighted state of the Deep South - transitioned from a heritage of cotton-based, agrarian despondency into one of today's quintessential "Sunbelt" growth centers, along with states like Texas, Arizona, and California. After two framing introductory chapters - one covering Florida's history up to 1940, and another from 1940 onward - the authors delve into several specific facets of our state's evolving culture, from a population that is increasingly diverse and increasingly old, to the looming fiscal crisis based on the state's antiquated taxation system, to some of the peculiar political problems that have plagued the state recently. A common theme is how the interplay of Northern and Southern elements dominates a variety of elements of life in the state, and how Florida now finds itself in an intermediary state, still somewhat connected to its Deep South past but ready to evolve (out of sheer necessity) toward a radically different future. In the closing chapter, issues ranging from environmental challenges, the lingering history of racial segregation, and staggering challenges facing public education are presented as key obstacles that must be overcome in order to cement Florida's place as a "role model" for other high-growth states.

At only 145 pages, Dr. Colburn's work is an easy read for demographics enthusiasts or more casual students of state history. Perhaps the only downside to the book is the overemphasis on some repetitive themes (i.e., Florida is rapidly evolving, Florida has a Southern past but a Sunbelt future, etc.) at the expense of specific details in places, but this is a minor setback, at best.

I am a resident of Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and have just returned from my third visit to Florida, the most recent one lasting for a month and which included a four day, 800 mile whirlwind tour of selected Florida locations, guided by a Friend who is a former Pennsylvanian and who has resided in Miami and Fort Lauderdale and vicinity, Florida for then past eleven years or so.

The venues included Miami and environs, including South Beach, Fort Lauderdale and environs, particularly Lauderdale-by-the-Sea,Palm Beach, West Palm Beach,Juno, Vero Beach, Kennedy Space Center, Orlando environs, Fort Myers and environs, Sanibel, Captiva and Tampa. Of course, this whirlwind tour, due to limited time, did not include all of the major Regions of the State and its Major Cities. A previous visit had included a three day visit to the Florida Keys, including Key West.My basic objectives were to visit and socialize with Friends and along with recreation, familiarize myself with the History and Present of Florida. After having completed the visit, I felt the need of an overview of what I had seen, in order to make comprehensive sense of what was essentially a partial mosaic in space and time.

This book has filled the Bill for me. The Authors are Scholars who write in a very readable and authoritative Style and I can heartilly reccomend it to anyone who wishes to understnad the Past, Present and Probable Future of Florida.