Seasons of Real Florida

This is one of several great collections of award-winning St. Petersburg Times writer Jeff Klinkenberg's columns about some of the most interesting people and places in the remaining pockets of Real Florida. A master wordsmith, Klinkenberg brings eccentric individuals, wild locales, and local history to life with deft skill. He looks beyond the big cities, theme parks, and cookie-cutter suburbs that define modern Florida. His interviews, vignettes, and anecdotes are delightful -- alternately funny, strange, bittersweet, or all three. This book is hard to put down. Though I'm a native Floridian and, for all but two years of my life, have been a life-long resident of the Sunshine State, and though I have traveled through almost every corner of it, I still found myself discovering new places and stories that I didn't know about, and becoming reacquainted with old ones and seeing them in a new light. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a taste of Real Florida!

The interesting Florida history written about in Peter Matthiessen's book, "Killing Mr. Watson" prompted further reading on the subject. Jeff Klinkenberg's stories capture that wonderful Florida background. Each chapter describes a different and quite unique Floridian person, place or thing, all spun into delightful true tales. Mr. Klinkenberg aptly chooses Florida history that displays "sense of place" so well. Like another reviewer, I'm a hard to please reader too. I couldn't put this book down, and I've never been to Florida. The cover photograph, "Loxahatchee River #30" by Clyde Butcher is so haunting, lovely and appropriate for this book. Fortunately Mr. Klinkenberg devotes an entire chapter describing the one-of-a-kind Clyde Butcher. This book is funny, very interesting and highly educational.

Jeff Klinkenberg has been out in his car on the back roads and he's found the reason everyone moved to Florida in the first place. When my great aunt moved to North Miami in 1927 her house was on stilts (floods and alligators); now it is surrounded by 6 foot chainlink fence topped with barbed wire (urban animals!). Jeff talks to people who tell him the stories in between those extremes. Excellent read for anyone who wonders what was there besides the weather.

If you want to know what real Florida is like, what it looks like, feels like, smells like and even tastes like -- fall through summer -- this is the book for you. Klinkenberg is a true original, a natural resource as valuable as the panther, manatee and black bear.

The book's editors (Mormino & Arsenault) invite us to sit down with Florida delectables, like orange juice, to read this book. My plan was to snag some recipes from Randy Wayne White's "The Fishing Guide's Guide to Tropical Cooking." Alas, Klinkenberg's book was in my custody for only a day when relatives spotted it on my table top and hauled it away for their reading pleasure. My half-a-book review: gimme my book back, I love this author!"Seasons" real value is in the future when we read its stories of people and places and look back wistfully at Florida as it was. And it reminds me that Florida today is still full of charm. And charming writers like Jeff Klinkenberg.