2 comments about Everglades River of Grass 60th Anniversary Edition.

1. This is an excellent book on the Everglades, the history of Florida, and the ecology of Florida.



2. Although there are no photos, this is an excellent table book to read and share with guests visiting Florida. It has wonderful history notes on the Everglades.

3 comments about The Palm Spring Diner's Bible: A Restaurant Guide for Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta, Bermuda Dunes, Indio, and Desert Hot Springs.

1. the most comprehensive guide in the desert, I especially liked the not recommended restaurants. rarely do you see a guide that dares to do that. It is obvious that this book is not advertiser driven and can tell the truth. Excellent!



2. I have been caught in the desert many times and now will never starve.
   
   Cannot say enough positive things about this text. The only change I would ever dream of making is perhaps including a thermos.
   
   Bret L. Thompson



3. Like the actual Bible according to Mark, Luke & John, this `Diner's Bible' is up to the same scrutiny and up to your own interpretation. Don't count on YOU receiving the same service and quality of food as this author. And, do not count out some of the other fine restaurants in the Palm Desert area out! - Like Bing Crosby's in Rancho Mirage. This restaurant deserves a 4 star rating for the food and ambiance, YET, this author does not even include it in his book and then goes off and rates BLEND in La Quinta with a 4 stars and it is not that at all. My husband and I went there to celebrate our special 40th wedding anniversary because we trusted in this Diner's Bible. It was not at all how the author described it. Service was awful with no acknowledgment for our anniversary; the waiter did not know the menu's food or wine and he kept us waiting for over 20 minutes (after the plates were cleared) before we flagged down another waiter to ask for our bill. We spent over $200 for two and would have gotten better service at MacDonald's. Sad for the chef because the food was great but won't go there again and told our friends about the bad service. The bad service left a bad taste in our month.

1 comments about More One Tank Trips: 52 Brand New Fun-Filled Florida Adventures (Fox 13 One Tank Trips Off the Beaten Path).

1. When you order this book be sure to also order "Beach Lover's Guide to the Perfect Sandwich" It contains 100 easy and delicious sandwich recipes to take on your "One Tank Trip"!

No comments about Fodor's Florida 2008 (Fodor's Gold Guides).

3 comments about Pilgrim in the Land of Alligators: More Stories about Real Florida (Florida History and Culture).

1. Found this great article from Jeff's paper, the St. Petersburg Times.
   
   Regaling us with real Florida
   By Gregory McNamee, Special to the Times
   Published Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:54 PM
   
   When I was very young, no more than 5 or 6, I saw an alligator eat a poodle right out of a Tampa back yard. It dawned on me at that sanguinary moment just why it was that my grandmother had forbidden me to play near the canal behind her house, where, naturally, I spent my time playing, and it gave me a lasting, nicely traumatic memory of Florida to nurse over a lifetime.
   
   Had he been on hand, I suspect Jeff Klinkenberg would have been cheering for the gator. After all, one of the heroes of Pilgrim in the Land of Alligators, his new collection of newspaper columns turned into essays, is an ubergator -- something on the order of a dragon, really -- named Mojo, once resident in Kanapaha Botanical Gardens near Gainesville.
   
   "You know how alligators will roar at other gators?" remarks the director of the gardens, who, suggestively, is missing his right hand. "Mojo was so dominant that when it thundered, he'd roar back at the thunder."
   
   Long familiar to and even beloved by St. Petersburg Times readers, Klinkenberg is a fan, defender, student and denizen of what the great pop culture historian Greil Marcus has called "the old, weird America," the country that hasn't yet been absorbed into the monoculture of chain stores, cookie-cutter houses and mass-produced taste.
   
   Preferring the confines of the Sunshine State, which is plenty weird enough, Klinkenberg has devoted decades to chronicling the wide spots on Florida's blue highways -- and, for that matter, the places where, improbably, no highways have yet been located, despite Florida's incessant growth.
   
   Take the Loop Road, for instance, an hour from Naples on one end and an hour from Miami on the other, a century from either in real time. Klinkenberg knows every inch of the road, and he knows as well its dozen-odd full-time residents, folks who have found it expedient to disappear into the Big Cypress for reasons of their own.
   
   One of them was Ervin Rouse, the fiddler who wrote Orange Blossom Special, and who passed away some years ago. Another, still with us, is a park ranger who might be singing with Ervin in the choir celestial had she not been ornery enough to shake off a load of pygmy rattler venom injected into her foot by said creature. "I was wearing flip-flops," she allows. "Somebody should have written D-U-M-B on my forehead."
   
   If there is a theme in Klinkenberg's genial wanderings down the Loop Road and other roads like it, it is that many of Florida's more interesting venues conspire not just to relieve the visitor of excess cash, but also of life and limb. There are the storms, of course, which Klinkenberg praises as allowing rare opportunities to enjoy the beach by oneself, sans loudmouth neighbors bearing boom boxes and drunken grudges.
   
   There are the bull sharks, which liberated an arm from another of his interlocutors. There are the snakes and skeeters behind every rustling blade of grass, the occasional wild-eyed outlaw, and, of course, the snowbird oblivious to the norms, physics and laws of motor traffic.
   
   But then there are treasures worthy of the dangers, and Klinkenberg has a rare gift for finding them. One is a backwoods type named Spook, who likes nothing more than to bring down a wild hog or two with his bare hands. Another is a pair of more pacific, indeed Thoreauvian swamp dwellers who have made their own version of paradise on the aptly named Peace River.
   
   There are the ghosts of hard-drinking, hard-smoking, hard-writing Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who turns up at several points here, and, to keep the otherworldly theme going, a Tampa eccentric who makes elaborate sculptures of animal bones, as well as the recently departed Gill Man, Ricou Browning, who scared us all to death half a century ago with his visage in Creature from the Black Lagoon -- if you look at it sideways, a Rawlings story gone terribly astray.
   
   And then, by way of a celebration of life, there is a visit to "the best place to eat pancakes in Florida, if not the world," which by Klinkenberg's estimation is the Old Spanish Sugar Mill and Griddle House in De Leon Springs State Park, up by Daytona Beach. (For my money, that honor goes to the Ranch House near Montpelier, Idaho, but de gustibus . . .)
   
   These are treasures to be sure, fine exemplars of an old and weird legacy. It's clear on every page that Klinkenberg has lived several worthy lifetimes in Florida, that he loves the place immoderately, and that he laments the state's transformation, along with the rest of the nation, into a land of tatty strip malls and soul-killing cul-de-sacs.
   
   Jeff Klinkenberg comforts himself with the thought that, come the apocalypse, the gators will still be here. It's a thought that ought to bring solace and a smile to the rest of us as well. So will this gracefully written, endlessly entertaining book, a gift for all who love the real Florida.
   
   Gregory McNamee lives in Tucson, Ariz. The University of Nebraska Press has just released his book ''Moveable Feasts: The History, Science, and Lore of Food'' in paperback.



2. If you'd known Jeff Klinkenberg in the '60s you would know that today he's a boy living his dream. There is no better guide to the 'real' Florida than Jeff, not because he knows Florida history, but because he loves it and he's lived it. He speaks to you as if you are sitting in the restaurant at his table, or having your sandwich with him on the ancient indian mound. His stories capture your interest and spur your sense of adventure. They inspire you to embrace the beauty, uniqueness, and sheer mystery of this land. There are Florida travel and interest guides galore, but none that match Jeff's depth or personal knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of a State that represents not only a land growing faster than any other (and yet clinging to the past with a steel-like grip) but a state of mind as well. These are not stories from someone's imagination, they entertain you with real people and places that, but for Jeff Klinkenberg, would fade into a distant past. Jeff is a time traveler who will take you on unbelievable journeys through centuries of archeological and human history with humor and curiosity. His is a guide that you want to bring with you when you visit because it is so far off the beaten path that you will feel right at home on the Loop Road. Indeed, I have known Jeff since the '60s, and witnessed his expertise first hand. If you are a true adventurer, I invite you to read 'Pilgrim in the Land of Alligators' and experience the 'real' Florida on behalf of barefoot children everywhere. You will not regret the trip through time.



3. This humble story teller of real people & real events make sense of Florida. Reminds me of Carl Hiaasen without the crazy humor. Jeff warms your heart.

2 comments about Florida State Parks.

1. 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).



2. 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.

2 comments about Shipwrecks of Florida: A Comprehensive Listing.

1. Shipwrecks of Florida : a comprehensive listing is great reading and a fantastic reference book. Anyone interested in underwater archaeology or shipwreck recovery should read this book and keep it as part of their library. I have been involved in the field of shipwreck recovery for eleven years, and I also manage the popular web site TreasureExpeditions.com. I feel that this will help to qualify my review of this book. Let me start by saying that I have had the opportunity to meet and work with Steven Singer. Steve is a person of high integrity and knowledge, all of which are displayed in the writing of this book. He has created an invaluable reference book that not only has probably one of the largest collection of shipwreck locations, but also covers other valuable topics such as; Research, Search and salvage, Wreck identification, Artifact conservation and Rights to wrecks. I have an extensive collection of material on underwater archaeology and shipwreck recovery, yet I have found this book to be invaluable to me. This book stands out as one of the true classics in the field of shipwreck recovery and underwater archaeology. Brad "Goldfinder" Johnson



2. a fine book for anyone looking into a shipwreck in florida or seeking information about shipwrecks ---will laid out and easy to use.

1 comments about Dream Homes Florida (Dream Homes).

1. I live a short distance from many of the homes that are profiled in this book and hope to use some of what I saw in my dream home. Very professional and glossy images (about 5 per home). The book appears to be a portfolio for the builders that are profiled within and that is not necessarily a bad thing. The only thing that is missing from this great book are the floor plans to these magnificent homes. This did not take away from the rating, because these homes are totally customized to their owners and do not have the cookie cutter look that many mansions in Central Florida have. The builders that are profiled state often how they like the challenge of designing a home that the owner will enjoy for a lifetime.

1 comments about Key West & the Keys, Fl (Z-Map).

1. We used this small folding map as we walked around Key West. It served its purpose well, but it lacked a lot of details that would have been useful along the way. All in all, we're happy with it.

1 comments about Rail-trails Southeast: Alabama, Florida ,georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina & Tennessee.

1. I gave this present to my aunt and uncle for Christmas as they have recently purchased new bikes and begun riding trails in our area. They have planned a trip to Florida next month and told me this book has been a great source of information in planning their trip. They really enjoyed this gift.