Florida Books

This book is unique in its subject matter. It helps today's reader understand the importance of the entire cotton production, trade, and manufacture.

Ms. Willoughby writes that the cotton trade's impact rippled over many other segments of the national economy and she quotes from another writer that this fiber has been called the most significant ingredient in the economic life of the whole nation [United States] before 1860.

The book describes the connection of cotton to currency and to banking and shows in detail how the banking system was vastly different from our present financial institutions.

The author stresses that much of the cotton business depended on the reputaions of individual men from the planter to the final purchaser and she gives short biographical descriptions of many key individuals.

Transportation facilities were vital to the moving of the cotton from the farm or plantation to the mill. The book describes the importance of vessels and shipping in every phase of the process and also the part that the early railroads played in making important changes in the entire ecomomy.

I would give this book a 10.

When we moved to Jacksonville with our two children a new neighbor gave this to us as a gift. What a great book!! It lists everything you could ever want to do with children. This book could keep you bust the whole year! A MUST buy for anyone new OR old to the area!

This book is written by a special person who touched the lives of many. As a substitute teacher, I first met her in the fifth grade in Hialeah. As a Florida native with a Cuban heritage (my mother was born in Key West) Mrs. Carlton has captured the flavors of the Keys and Tampa most accurately. Try the Key Lime Pie!

Great Author, and a very easy read. If you have ever been to the Keys, this book will help you learn more about the lives of the people long ago, who first encountered them, THE HARD WAY. Very interesting!

This book just isn't about the Civil War. It tells how a father and son fight together. It also tells what happens to the family that are left behind and what they go thru. Most of my family has read this book. We are the descendants of William Addison Hunter.

Levy is brilliant. His analysis, while thoughtful and insightful, is also provocative and engaging. Especially enjoyed the chapter on Rattlesnakes.

Great Transaction - no problems, book in great shape, very happy - THANKS

This is a completely new reptile/amphibian field guide to Florida (its about time!) by one of our favorite author teams: R.D. Bartlett and Patricia P. Bartlett. This book covers all the amphibians, lizards, turtles, tortoises, crocodiles, and alligators. It complements Alan Tennant's authoritative Field Guide to Snakes of Florida (by the same publisher). Dick Bartlett's photography is superb! Highly recommended.

This is a great book, a must-have if you're a Gator fan. If you've ever been to the gatorsports site, you know Gator fans just can't get enough. (There's even a CD in honor of "Bull Gator Steve" that I hope Amazon will have available.) There's nothing dry and boring about this history; it's full of great pictures, legendary tales, and all the spirit that makes us Gator fans keep on growling!

From the Panhandle to Key West, the state of Florida offers its visitors far more than sunshine and warm temperatures during the year's colder months. Are you interested in a vacation that offers "history and mystery" as well as wonderful food, pleasant surroundings, and plenty of local color? If so, you can't go wrong with this combination travel guide and ghost story collection.

Florida, of course, has a right to more ghosts than more recently settled parts of the United States. As Author Walls points out, in 1620 when the Pilgrims reached Plymouth there was already a thriving settlement at St. Augustine. The state's paranormal riches date back even farther than that, though. The inhabitants of Crystal River State Archaeological Site's pre-historic burial mounds make their continuing presence known, as do those of the Timacuan Indian mound just north of the city in Ormond Beach.

Tragic lovers. A little girl playing jacks. A farmer who found a much easier (but horrific) way to get rid of his migrant workers than simply paying them for their labors. A doll that, imbued with its departed owner's personality, moves about its museum case and ruins the camera film of anyone who tries to photograph it. An old lady whose body left her beloved home when she died, but whose spirit continues to watch over the place with benevolent interest - except when a female guest's skirt is too short, in which case she tries to pull it lower by the hem! The ghosts that Walls describes are a varied lot, and an intriguing one. I believe I would take her advice about the places of which she says, "If you go there, it is wise to not go alone."

I would also take her advice about bed-and-breakfasts, inns, and eating establishments of all sorts. Her descriptions of these made me want to pull up stakes and head a thousand miles south, to sit on shady verandas and stuff myself with both gourmet and "plain old down home" cooking. Good reading even if you're not planning to travel soon, in other words!

--Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of "Rough Rider"