Reading Roadtrip: 50 Books for 50 States: Florida

A stranger in a strange land, Eire (Waiting for Snow in Havana), one of 14,000 children airlifted out of Cuba in Operation Peter Pan in 1962, describes the classic American immigrant experience in Miami, Fla., with a mix of insightful observation, humor, and heartfelt emotion.

In 1990, Ellen McGarrahan was a young reporter for the Miami Herald when she covered the execution of Jesse Tafero, a man convicted of murdering two police officers. When it later emerged that Tafero may not have committed the murders, McGarrahan becamehaunted by that grisly execution--and appalled by her unquestioning acceptance of the state's version of events. Decades later, in the midst of her successful career as a private investigator, McGarrahan finally decides to find out the truth of what really happened. Her investigation takes her back to Florida, where she combs through court files and interviews everyone involved in the case, in. She plunges back into the Miami of the 1960s and 1970s, where gangsters and kingpins and beautiful women inhabita dangerous world of nightclubs, speed boats, and drug cartels. Violence is everywhere. The murdered police officers, she discovers, are only one part of the picture. But even as McGarrahan circles closer to the truth, the story of guilt and innocence becomes more complex. She gradually discovers that she hasn't been alone in her search for closure, because whenever a human life is forcibly taken--by bullet, or by electric chair--the reckoning is long and difficult. Both a gripping true-crime narrative and a fascinating glimpse into the life of a private investigator, Two Truths and a Lie is ultimately a profound meditation on grief and complicity.

To catch a Florida Man, you have to become one, and that's what Officer Jeff Babauta did. As his ponytailed, whiskey-soaked alter ego, he established Sunshine Alligator Farm. His goal? Infiltrate the shady world of illegal poachers in the Florida Everglades in order to protect the natural world. A head-spinning adventure soon unfolds. Jeff deals with glow-in-the-dark alligators and high-speed airboat rides, but quickly learns that not all poachers are villains. They're simply people trying to survive, fighting against the poverty and greed holding them down. Jeff wants to solve the mystery of alligator poachers, and in doing so he must venture deeper into a strange ecosystem where right is wrong, and justice comes at the cost of those who've welcomed him into their world. Gator Country is the twisting true story of the impossible choices individuals must make to stay afloat in this world. Through its wholly unique blend of reporting, nature writing, and personal narrative, this book transports readers to vibrant and dangerous Florida landscapes and offers intimate portraits of those who call the region home. Broad in scope and vivid in detail, Gator Country is a fast paced tale of the risks people will take to survive in one of the world's most beautiful yet formidable landscapes and the undercover investigation that threatens to topple the whole scheme.

Recounts the story of the Dozier School, a Florida reform school shut down in 2011 due to reports of cruelty, abuse, and mysterious deaths, and the efforts of the author, a leading forensic anthropologist, to locate and exhume the graves of the boys buried there in order to reunite them with their families.

The New York Times best-selling author of Columbine offers a deeply moving account of the extraordinary teenage survivors of Parkland who became activists and pushed back against the NRA and Congressional leaders -- inspiring millions of Americans to join their grassroots #neveragain movement.

A holistic look at the Florida resort's culinary past, present, and future--all organically woven around diverse recipes from the Disney chefs and fit for home chefs of varying skill levels.

"A long-awaited testament to the life and work of Alfred Hair, the driving force of the Florida Highwaymen, this book introduces a charismatic personality whose energy and creativity were foundational to the success of his fellow African American artists during the era of Jim Crow segregation.

Lonely Planet's Florida is our most comprehensive guide that extensively covers all the state has to offer, with recommendations for both popular and lesser-known experiences. Sip a piña colada poolside, catch an unforgettable concert in a Miami club and experience the thrills of Universal Orlando Resort; all with your trusted travel companion.

From sandy beaches and amusement parks to wild natural beauty, see what keeps visitors coming back to the Sunshine State with Moon South Florida & the Keys Road Trip.

The most comprehensive guide to the Sunshine State's northwest region Welcome to the quieter side of Florida. The northwest has it all--prime Gulf Coast vacation spots, powdery quartz beaches, unexpected waterfalls, and historic downtown areas across the Panhandle. Florida's history runs deepest here, from prehistoric settlements at Cedar Key and along the Aucilla River to the Spanish colonies at Pensacola and St. Augustine. Sandra Friend and John Keatley show readers the best of their state's natural wonders and historic sights, the seafood restaurants most worth your time, the most unique lodgings, and a beach for everyone, whether you're seeking serenity or a busy social scene. As with every Explorer's Guide, you'll get the latest, most thoroughly researched recommendations for everything from eating, sleeping, exploring, local festivals, transportation options, and much more. Full color photographs bring the destination alive, while color maps and clear, concise directions guide you in your travels.Now in its third edition, this guide is indispensable for any vacationer hoping to enjoy the region to its fullest.

In the summer of 2016, Kent Russell--broke, at loose ends, hungry for adventure--set off to walk across Florida. Mythic, superficial, soaked in contradictions, maligned by cultural elites, segregated from the south, and literally vanishing into the sea, Florida (or, as he calls it: "American Concentrate") seemed to Russell to embody America's divided soul. The journey with two friends intent on filming the ensuing mayhem, quickly reduces the trio to filthy, drifters pushing a shopping cart of camera equipment. They get waylaid by a concerned citizen bearing a rifle; buy cocaine from an ex-wrestler; visit a spiritual medium; attend a cuckold party. The narrative overflows with historical detail about how modern Florida came into being after World War II; and how it came to be a petri-dish for life in a suddenly, increasingly, diverse new land of minority-majority cities and of unrivaled ethnic and religious variety. Russell has taken it all in with his incomparably focused lens, and delivered a book that is both an inspired travelogue and a profound rumination on the nation's soul--and his own. It is a book that is wildly vivid, encyclopedic, erudite, and ferociously irreverent--a deeply ambivalent love letter to his sprawling, brazenly varied home state

Moments before the Roaring Twenties sunk into the Great Depression, socialite heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and financier E.F. Hutton constructed an estate to outdo all estates. To the tune of $4 million (about $68 million today) and four years of labor they called forth a 118-room mansion in a conflated Spanish, Portuguese, and Venetian design over a coral reef in hurricane-prone Palm Beach County. They named it Mar-a-Lago--a winter haven where corporate titans, the glitterati, and nobility gathered. But the honeymoon didn't last long. In American Castle, Pulitzer Prize finalist Mary C. Shanklin reveals a century of controversy, politics, and lifestyles of the super-rich and powerful after Mar-a-Lago became a part-time residence and party place upon Post's divorce from Hutton over mutual adultery. It's a story of an American royal who, at the age of 27, inherited a cereal company that would later become the General Foods Corporation and spent a lifetime in business, art collection, philanthropy, and the management of multiple estates--including her white elephant, Mar-a-Lago. Though she tried time again, as Shanklin covers in riveting detail, Post could not offload the behemoth due to its extraordinary maintenance costs and the uppity Palm Beach neighbors.Drawing from previously untapped interviews, documents, and recordings, Shanklin follows Mar-a-Lago's evolution as it collides with the Kennedys, the state of Florida, a potential make-over as The Mar-a-Lago Center for Advanced Scholars, Lady Bird Johnson, Richard Nixon, the National Park Service, and--of course--Donald Trump, who pursued subdivision, threatened to sell to Reverend Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church, hosted Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, made it a for-profit club, received scandalous dinner guests, turned it into his Winter White House, and watched the FBI raid before holding a home-court presser as the first former president to face criminal charges.How did the Palm Beach hamlet so lacquered in grace and elegance come to find itself rooted in American Castle: One Hundred Years of Mar-a-Lago.

Sebastian Harlow is the Black Flamingo, a flamboyant and narcissistic thief who gets his kicks stealing mystic artifacts from the wealthy and corrupt of Miami's occult underground. When his latest job leads him to his biggest score so far, the hedonistic outlaw discovers something he wasn't looking for, something to believe in.