Florida Reads

Miami resident Ariza shows “not only what climate change looks like on the ground today, but also what Miami will look like 100 years from now, and how that future has been shaped by the city’s racist past and present.” It’s a view of Miami you don’t often see, one that talks about rising costs and sea levels. Not to be all about the cover, but I am all about this cover.

A modern nonfiction classic! Orlean goes way, way into the orchid world, focusing on not only the flower, but the people who love it. She wades into the Fakahatchee Strand to see rare orchids, visits orchid enthusiasts, and spends a lot of time with John Laroche, a man arrested for poaching rare orchids. I have literally never looked at orchids the same way after reading this book.

The depictions of the enslavement of people in American history tend to center around states like Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, etc. But slavery existed in Florida from the time of Spanish occupation. Rivers also tells “of the hundreds of armed free blacks and runaways among the Seminole, Creek, and Mikasuki Indians on the peninsula.” Bonus points to this for being a university press book.

This is a classic of environmental literature. If you’ve seen the Drunk History about Marjory Stoneman Douglas, then you know about Douglas’s dedication to saving the Everglades. In 1947, she published this book, which drew attention to the Everglades as a stunning ecosystem worth preserving from the onslaught of housing and land redevelopment.