Week of May 14, 2012

Florida, the Sunshine State

In the News: Summer doesn’t officially begin until June, but the temperatures are starting to rise here in the 22^nd largest (in total area) and the 4^th most populous state of the Union. Summer session at FAU is underway so there is no rest for the weary. However, when time allows, pick up one of these newer books and DVDs on Florida.

 

The 57 Club: My Four Decades in Florida Politics
By Frederick B. Karl. UP of Florida, 2010
Call Number: F316.23 .K37 A3 2010

90 Miles (DVD)
Directed by Juan Carlos Zaldivar. Phonograph Films, 2007
Call Number: E184 .C97 A17 2007 (Boca Raton Media Center)
Cuban-born filmmaker recounts the strange fate that brought him as a groomed young communist to exile in Miami in 1980 during the dramatic Mariel boatlift. The story of an immigrant family and how the historical forces around them shaped their personal relationships and attitudes towards the world around them.

The 2008 Elections in Florida: Change! But Only at the Top of the Ticket
By Robert E. Crew, Jr. and Slater Bayliss. UP of America, 2011
Call Number: JK4416 .C74 2011

Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (DVD)
Directed by Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill. Columbia TriStar, 2003
Call Number: HV6517 .A45 2004 (Boca Raton Media Center)

Counting on Democracy (DVD)
Directed by Danny Schechter. Bullfrog Films, 2002
Call Number: JK526 2000 .C68 2002 (Boca Raton Media Center)
Investigates the disenfranchisement of voters in the 2000 Presidential election and claims that Florida governor Jeb Bush’s office tried to bury evidence of the exclusion of tens of thousands of legal voters from the voter rolls. Before the fiasco in Florida, most Americans assumed that the votes they cast would be counted in accordance with one of the fundamental principles of American democracy, yet 175,000 votes cast in that state, largely by the working poor and people of color, were uncounted. The story of the Bush-Gore presidential race plays like a drama in many acts. Set in the context of the history of voting rights violations, ‘Counting On Democracy’ asserts that a systematic pattern of behavior on the part of the Florida’s various election boards, overseen by a compromised elections department, resulted in a myriad of lost votes. What emerges is a shocking but very clear picture of political interests cynically ignoring and overriding the will of voters.

Exiles in Eden: Life Among the Ruins of Florida’s Great Recession
By Paul Reyes. Henry Holt and Co., 2010
Call Number: HG2040.5 .U6 F616 2010

Fields of Resistance: The Struggle of Florida’s Farmworkers for Justice
By Silvia Giagnoni. Haymarket Books, 2011
Call Number: HD1527 .F6 G35 2011

Fifteen Florida Cemeteries: Strange Tales Unearthed
By Lola Haskins. UP of Florida, 2011
Call Number: F312 .H37 2011

Florida Civil War Blockades: Battling for the Coast
By Nick Wynne and Joe Crankshaw. History Press, 2011
Call Number: E600 .W96 2011

Florida’s Fishing Legends and Pioneers
By Doug Kelly. UP of Florida, 2011
Call Number: SH483 .K45 2011

Florida’s Megatrends: Critical Issues in Florida
By David Colburn and Lance deHaven-Smith. UP of Florida, 2010
Call Number: HN79 .F6 C65 2010

Florida’s Water: A Fragile Resource in a Vulnerable State
By Tom Swihart. RFF Press, 2011
Call Number: GB705 .F5 S94 2011

Gangsters of Miami: True Tales of Mobsters, Gamblers, Hit Men, Con Men and Gang Bangers from the Magic City
By Ron Chepesiuk. Barricade Books, 2010
Call Number: HV6452 .F7 C54 2010

Guy LaBree: Barefoot Artist of the Florida Seminoles
By Carol Mahler. UP of Florida, 2010
Call Number: ND237 .L193 M35 2010

Hidden Seminoles: Julian Dimock’s Historic Florida Photographs
By Jerald T. Milanich and Nina J. Root. UP of Florida, 2011
Call Number: E99 .S28 M55 2011

How Florida Happened: The Political Education of Buddy MacKay
By Buddy MacKay. UP of Florida, 2010
Call Number: F316.23 .M33 A3 2010

Immigrant Prince: Mel Martinez and the American Dream
By Richard E. Foglesong. UP of Florida, 2011
Call Number: E901.1 .M37 F64 2011

Invasive Pythons in the United States: Ecology of an Introduced Predator
By Michael E. Dorcas and John D. Wilson. University of Georgia Press, 2011
Call Number: QL666 .O67 D667 2011

Key West Hemingway: A Reassessment
Edited by Kirk Curnutt and Gail D. Sinclair. UP of Florida, 2009
Call Number: PS3515 .E37 Z6655 2009

Landscape and Hydrology of the Predrainage Everglades
By Christopher W. McVoy et al. UP of Florida, 2011
Call Number: GE155 .F6 L36 2011

Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad That Crossed an Ocean
By Les Standiford. Henry Morrison Flagler Museum, 2011
Call Number: TF24 .F6 S73 2011

Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy
By Carlos Eire. Free Press, 2010
Call Number: E184 .C97 E36 2010

Loren Cass (DVD)
Directed by Chris Fuller. Kino International, 2009
Call Number: PN1997.2 .L6756 2009 (Boca Raton Media Center)
Three teens try to figure out who they are after the 1996 riots in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Miami: Mistress of the Americas
By Jan Nijman. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011
Call Number: HT384 .U62 F645 2010

Miami Beach Deco
By Steven Brooke. Universe, 2011
Call Number: NA712.5 .A7 B76 2011

Mooney vs. Fowle (DVD)
Directed by James Lipscomb. Docuramafilms, 2011
Call Number: GV956.6 .M66 2011
A cinema verite study of two high school football coaches, Ottis Mooney and Haywood Fowle, pitted against each other for the Florida state championship. During pre-game chalk-talks, scrimmages, and then a big game in a packed Orange Bowl, we see how two men, intent on the same goal, try to achieve it in completely different ways. Includes scenes of the 1961 Edison vs. Miami High School championship game in the Orange Bowl.

Our Signature: The Wild and Scenic Loxahatchee River (DVD)
Live Oak Production Group, 2005
Call Number: QH90.75 .F6 O97 2005 (Boca Raton Media Center)
Produced as a communication tool for the Loxahatchee River Preservation Initiative, the film tells the story of the Loxahatchee River, from its earliest companions, Native Americans, to its current environmental significance. Also addresses how the river has been impacted by development and explores the ongoing restoration work being done by the Loxahatchee River Preservation Initiative to improve water quality and wildlife habitat.

Poor and Homeless in the Sunshine State: Down and Out in Theme Park Nation
By James D. Wright and Amy M. Donley. Transaction Publishers, 2011
Call Number: HC107 .F63 P627 2011

Pueblos Hermanos (DVD)
Directed by Charles D. Thompson, Jr. and Michael Davey. Bullfrog Films, 2010
Call Number: E184 .G82 B76 2010 (Boca Raton Media Center)
Story of two towns linked by immigration, family, and work: Jacaltenango, a highland Maya town in Guatemala; and Jupiter, a coastal resort town in Florida, where many Jacaltecos have settled. The film chronicles a story of how and why people migrate across borders, how people make and remake their communities when they travel thousands of miles from home, and how people maintain families despite their travel. It is a story of local and international controversy.

Rare and Unusual Shells of Southern Florida – Faculty Publication
By Edward J. Petuch and Dennis M. Sargent. Conch Republic Books, 2011
Call Number: QL415 .F6 P482 2011

Recount
Directed by Jay Roach. HBO, 2008
Call Number: PN1997.2 .R4268 2008 (Boca Raton Media Center)
The story of the 2000 presidential election.

Reubin O’D. Askew and the Golden Age of Florida Politics
By Martin A. Dyckman. UP of Florida, 2011
Call Number: F316.23 .A75 2011

Salvaging the Real Florida: Lost and Found in the State of Dreams
By Bill Belleville. UP of Florida, 2011
Call Number: F311.5 .B35 2011

Sunshine State (DVD)
Directed by John Sayles. Columbia TriStar, 2002
Call Number: PN1997 .S96 2002 (At Jupiter)
The rumbling approach of real estate developers on a sleepy Florida island sets the leisurely paced plot in motion.

Swamplandia!
By Karen Russell. Alfred A. Knopr, 2011
Call Number: PS3618 .U755 S93 2011

Swamplife: People, Gators, and Mangroves Entangled in the Everglades
By Laura A. Ogden. University of Minnesota Press, 2011
Call Number: GF204 .F6 O44 2011

Sweet Cane: The Architecture of the Sugar Works of East Florida
By Lucy B. Wayne. University of Alabama Press, 2010
Call Number: F312 .W39 2010

Treasures of the Panhandle: A Journey through West Florida
By Brian R. Rucker. UP of Florida, 2011
Call Number: F317 .W5 R83 2011

Vernon, Florida (DVD)
Directed by Errol Morris. MGM, 2005
Call Number: F319 .V4 V47 2005 (Boca Raton Media Center)
Captures the personalities of the residents of Vernon, in the Florida panhandle. Errol Morris interviews a cross-section of residents from a variety of backgrounds, the preacher to the turkey hunter.

Wish You Were Here: Classic Florida Motel and Restaurant Advertising
By Tim Hollis. UP of Florida, 2011
Call Number: TX909 .H65 2011

Zora Neale Hurston’s Final Decade
By Virginia Lynn Moyland. UP of Florida, 2011
Call Number: PS3515 .U789 Z788 2011