Top 14 Books About Florida Updated 04 /2024

Florida literature is usually not given enough attention. If you ask someone what their favorite book about Florida is, they might not say anything or think about it for a while. Sure, someone might be excited to say that Hemingway lived in Key West, but that doesn't really matter. We're talking about books aboutFlorida. Culture Trip is here to make sure that literary naivety doesn't happen again! We want you to know who the best writers in Florida are and what their best works are, so we've put together a list of eight novels that show what it's like to live or have lived in Florida.

The Yearling – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The Yearling was written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in 1938. It was the best-selling book in the United States the year it came out. In 1870, a lot of animals live in the woods of central Florida. The story is about young Jody Baxter and his relationship with a yearling. The hardships that Jody's family has to deal with are always in the back of his mind when he plays outside. A rattlesnake bites Jody's mother, so she has to shoot a doe in order to get the venom out of her liver with it. Because of Jody's persuasive skills, his parents let him adopt the young fawn the doe left behind. As Jody grows up, he always has his yearling friend by his side. He learns a lot about how hard it is to be a farmer.

Tourist Season – Carl Hiassen

Carl Hiassen is a well-known author of South Florida satirical fiction. In his books, he has a way of capturing the humor in fictitious but real crimes and cover-ups. A lot of different stories and subplots are going on in Hiasen's novels, but they all connect in some way that is just plain silly. When Carl isn't writing novels or short stories or editorials for the Miami Herald, he is writing for kids.

 

In 1986, he wrote his first book on his own. It was called Tourist Season, and it tells a complicated story about Brian Keyes, a private investigator and former news reporter for the Miami Sun. Wiley has to deal with dangerous gangsters and a hungry crocodile as he tries to find out the truth about a case of strange murders being planned by a renegade newspaper columnist named Skip Wiley. Wiley thinks that the only way to save Florida's natural beauty from being destroyed is to violently dissuade tourists from visiting and moving there. Other great Hiaasen novels include Basket Case, Strip Tease, and Razor Girl. It looks like there will be more from Hiaasen soon...

Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neal Hurston

Let's go back in time for our next book. Zora Neal Hurston will always be one of the best writers to come out of Florida, even though she died a long time ago. In the late 19th and early 20th century, she was an African American woman who went to college and worked as a professional. Her story is amazing. A lot of racism is found in Hurston's work, so she wrote the book Their Eyes Were Watching God in 1937. In the book she tells the story of Janie Crawford, a young woman who grows up to become an adult who has control over her own destiny. People think this is one of the most important books in both African-American literature and women's literature because it's set in central Florida.

Florida Roadkill – Tim Dorsey

Roadkill was written in 1999, but it was set in 1997, when the Florida Marlins made a huge comeback to win the World Series in Miami. Serge Storms, a smart but sociopathic criminal, teams up with heartless stripper Sharon Rhodes and a brainless drug addict named Seymore "Coleman" Bunsen in this movie. Serge comes up with a plan to steal a huge fraudulent insurance settlement from an overdressed dentist, but the money is hard to come by. We won't say how the characters died, but we will say that the theft doesn't go as planned. This book is a lot like a book by Hiaasen. It uses satire and humor to make a point about the crazy, ratchet, and deplorable crimes that happen every day in the shadows of Miami.

Peter Matthiessen’s Trilogy

Peter Matthiessen was an American author, naturalist, and CIA agent. Besides, he is the only person to win the National Book Award for both fiction and nonfiction. He also was a well-known environmentalist. During the early 1900s, Matthiessen wrote three books: Killing Mister Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone. Because Matthiessen didn't name the trilogy, these three books are about a cane farmer on the Florida Gulf Coast named Edgar J. Watson, who is said to have killed many people but the exact stories aren't known for sure. The three books are told from different points of view. In the last book, Bone by Bone, Watson talks about his life from start to finish.

The Green Ripper – John D. MacDonald

It's a mystery book by John D. McDonald, who is known for writing thrillers. MacDonald wrote a lot of books about crime and suspense, many of which were set in his new home of Florida. Popular and critically acclaimed Travis McGee series is one of his best-known works. The Green Ripper is the 18th in a series of 21. It won a U.S. National Book Award in the Mystery category in 1980. When McGee's lover Gretel was killed by an unknown, terrorist group, he wants to get back at them for what they did. Title: The name of the Grim Reaper is spelled backwards in this title.

Hoot – Carl Hiaasen

There is going to be another show. We told you that he was going to come back. In fact, this whole article could be about only Hiaasen books. We've already talked about one of Hiaasen's crime-filled thrillers, so now we're going to talk about Hoot, Hiaasen's first children's book. Hoot is a story about a young boy named Roy, who moved from Montana to Florida with his family. It would be bad for the burrowing owls who live there if a pancake house was built there. Roy makes two weird friends, a bad enemy, and helps stop the building of a pancake house. The book won a Newbery Honor award in 2003, and a film based on it came out in 2006.

Because of Winn-Dixie – Kate DoCamillo

Children and young adults who live in Florida like to read Because of Winn-Dixie, which was written by Kate DiCamillo and first came out in 2000. In addition to the Mark Twain Award, the book won a lot of other awards because of its symbolic imagery and unique story telling. It is about a 10-year-old named India Opal Buloni who just moved to a trailer park in the small town of Naomi, Florida. The book tells her story. As soon as she sees the dog at Winn-Dixie, Opal claims it as her own. The book tells how Opals moves into a new life and how she grows up as she learns to understand and forgive.

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