Book list

[Rik]

I know this site isn't new for many - http://evergladesplan.org/index.aspx - but stumbling around in there, I found their reading list. Very nice list of books.

http://evergladesplan.org/read/default.aspx

[Keith W]

Lots of good stuff here! Highly recommended are The Swamp by Michael Grunwald and Stolen Water by Hodding Carter. Carter's book describes his own crossing of the Shark River Slough with Park Ranger Steve Robinson, who passed away in 2007.

A couple that are missing:

A Dredgeman of Cape Sable by Lawrence Will. A very good first-hand account of the dredging of the Homestead Canal. I have a signed first edition, and a 'reading copy' I bought at the Coe VC bookstore.

To Keep From Starving by Glen Simmons. Self-published by Glen, stories collected from his journals. The Park won't sell this one in their bookstore because of 'controversial' subject matter. I bought three of the last 4 copies Glen had left last year. His wife talked about getting more printed, but I don't know if they did. I can find out and try to get some for anybody who might want one.

[vivian]

This is a great link, thanks Rik! I see there are quite a few I still have to read :-)

[toofaraway]

Just finished reading the "Prop Roots" series published by the Collier County School district back in the late 70's, early 80's. Small pamphlets you used to be able to buy at the Smallwood Store. In Vol 2 the students from Everglades High interview the remaining hermits still living in the glades in '79. Great stuff. I found it online at Alibris or Amazon. I also found Truesdell's "Guide to the Wilderness Waterway" online first edition for $2.50, same as the original price in '69! Such a bargain.

The "Barefoot Mailman" is a great little book too, not about the glades but fascinating Fl history.

[Rob Stevens]

That list is very helpful. I was wondering if anyone can suggest books both fiction and non fiction that take place specifically in the coastal mangrove waters from Everglade City to Flamingo. Also articles or web sites. I am aware of:

 Peter Matthiessen trilogy,

Totch by Loren "Totch" Brown

Crackers in the Glade by Rob Storter

True Tales of the Everglades by Stuart McIver

From the Swamp to the Keys by Johnny Molloy

Nature Girl by Carl Hiassen

There is a little in :

The Cruise of the "Seminole" by Vincent Gilpin

Stolen Water by Hodding Carter

and a few chapters in:

 Tales of Old Florida

My personal intrests are Calusa history and archaeology, postcontact history, and detective/ murder mysteries. And I find the mysteries the best reading by headlamp. Thanks, Rob

[toofaraway]

Randy Wayne White has a bunch of Fiction books that involve the Western Glades.  Just finished "the man who invented florida" which was mostly about his uncle who lives in Mango.  Which might as well be called Everglades City or Marco.  Some good characters.  All his work is based out of SW FL.

[Connie Mier]

That's a great resource, thanks for sharing.  TFA, awesome that you found the 1st ed of Truesdell's book. 

There are 2 books in particular on the list that I highly recommend.

 

Hugh Willoughby's Across the Everglades, published in 1898.

Calvin Stone's Forty years in the Everglades (a lot of info on Big cypress and Fakahatchee areas).

[vivian]

I am definately going to get a copy of the Dredgeman of Cape Sable. After paddling down the Bear Lake trail a couple of weeks ago I just imagined how difficult it must have been to carve out that trail.

 

One book I re read on a 3 day paddle trip last November was, Nine Florida Stories by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas. Good book to bring along when you want to read a short story before going to bed. The stories are works of fiction that take place in South Florida, Everglades, Big Cypress and the Keys.

[0hmgywazkroze]

 

Gladesmen - Laura Ogden and Glen Simmons

Dredgeman of Cape Sable

Hugh Willoughby's - Across the Everglades ( a weathered old copy form the FIU library)

Anyways, these three texts provided me inspiration when I first started exploring the glades in the late 90's. I 've have always tried to imagine what the landscape must of looked like then. I've wondered which hammock Hugh W setup his camp when drinking his "sweet bay tea"....or taking the far end of ingram highway or even the dried up slough (mentioned in Gladesmen)that used to exist between the park and florida city.

 

I've tried to get my hands on other Glen Simmons/Laura Ogden  books but have been so far unsucessful...

 

[toofaraway]

Alibris has numerous copies of  Gladesmen available, that's a fun book.

http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?mtype=B&keyword=gladesmen

[Rob Stevens]

I have another book to recommend. "Death in the Everglades" by Stuart B. McIver. It's about the plume trade and the murder of the game warden Guy Bradley near Flamingo. You bushwackers will like the description of George Cuthbert canoeing from Tarpon Creek to Cuthbert Lake while leaving no trace.

[Amazon Bill]

This book is a chronology of the manmade political conversion of south Florida and the Everglades through land deals and dredging to "tame the land and make it productive.
The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise (Paperback)
By Michael Grunwald

[Swamp Hunter]

Florida's Vanishing Trail by James Hammond