Wish You Were Here



Don Blanding: "Florida skies are vast and wide, and never two days the same. A panorama that shifts and blends with colors that have no name. Is there a name for the mystic blue that comes at the twilight's close?"  from Floridays, 1941, 1956.



No surprise - it's been bitterly cold with the ground buried beneath snow. Relief arrived along with a late January thaw and a string of sunny days. But winter's cold air is returning soon with predictions of snow this weekend. And that's when the mind starts wandering...south. 

To Florida. The Sunshine State. **Population 19,552,860 and ranked the fourth most populated state. Tourism is the state's number one industry. And why not?? Florida has beaches, Walt Disney World, Kennedy Space Center, and the oldest permanent European settlement in the U.S. - St. Augustine. You can explore history, enjoy a famous sunset (Key West), people watch in South Beach, and eat fresh fish while delighting in the balmy breeze. And temperatures will certainly be above freezing. 

Those of us with no Florida travel plans can listen to a Jimmy Buffett tune or two, turn up the heat to around 85 degrees while wearing a T-shirt and shorts (no coat, hat or gloves) and read a book that's based in Florida. A lot of us may be stuck in the cold and snow, but so many fictional characters are living a warm life.  



   

Just add a book and a cool drink.

  











                                
                                 Warm Reading


Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Stuckey-French, Elizabeth. What a great and creative story! The title says it all - this is a story of revenge. Also a story of family and friendship.

Swamplandia! - Russell, Karen. Maybe it's the heat or the salty air, Florida just becomes another character in so many books. If you're a fan of Carl Hiaasen, you'll enjoy the story of the Bigtree family in "Swamplandia!."

The Deep Blue Good-By (Travis McGee series)  - MacDonald, John. Vintage mystery series. Get to know Travis McGee and his beloved south Florida.

Alas, Babylon - Frank, Pat. What if a nuclear catastrophe happened and all that was left was a small Florida town?

Stiltsville - Daniel, Susanna. Great novel about the quirky community living in homes on stilts in the Miami area. Daniel is a wonderful story teller. 

The Yearling - Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan. A classic story of a young boy and an orphaned fawn. Rawlings won the 1939 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for this poignant story.  

Skinny Dip - Hiaasen, Carl. Along with the aforementioned heat and salty air are some of the zaniest and yet, somehow believable characters. Also - Double Whammy and Tourist Season.

Black and Blue - Quindlen, Anna. Running away from an abusive husband, Fran Benedetto tries to start a new life in Florida.

Duma Key - King, Stephen. The story of Edgar Freemantle is keeping me up late as I try to figure out the power of Duma Key. 

The Orchid Thief - Orlean, Susan (nonfiction). Reads like a novel. This is the story of a man who poaches orchids from the Everglades.

The Corpse Had a Familiar Face - Buchanan, Edna (nonfiction). Award winning reporter brings readers along on some very strange, intriguing stories.

And three more classics: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God; Ernest Hemingway's To Have and Have Not; Thomas McGuane's Ninety-two in the Shade.  





**Thanks to The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2015 for the Florida information. 


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