Florida Book Club

WLRN environmental reporter Jenny Staletovich talks about her career covering some of Florida's most pressing and urgent issues — and how python stories are, ideally, the "gateway drug" luring audiences in to learn about more mundane but much more important ecological and climate issues!

Python hunters, reptile traders, and people you might know from a meme or bizarre headline are who you might think of when you consider Florida's citizenry, but there's so much more to them and to this state, as you'll find out in this episode, where Tyler Gillespie and I discuss his 2021 book, The Thing About Florida.

The traumas endured by World War I vets during and after the conflict have mostly faded from public historical memory. Rebecca Johnston joins me to discuss her new novel, Not To Keep, which follows the lives of a tight group of North Florida friends from their rustic childhoods through their experiences war and its painful aftermath.

Craig Pittman has been called a Florida Institution, and you can see why when you read his work. He discusses his latest book, a collection of essays and columns culled from a 30-plus year career in journalism, with us on Florida Book Club.

John Davis Jr. explores a dark period in his home state's history in his Florida Book Award-winning poetry collection The Places That Hold, but there are some lighthearted and thoughtful ruminations on parenthood in there, too. He discusses his work with me on this episode of Florida Book Club.

Gianna Russo, Tampa's Wordsmith (yes, that's a real office) presents to us in the recently published book All I See is Your Glinting: "Nature and the collective human experience that we all went through" in the later months of 2020, accompanied by striking photos by Jenny Carey.

If you can survive Florida, you are the fittest. Season 5 of Florida Book Club is coming Wednesday, May 18!

Jane Austen and the Buddha are not thinkers one would normally consider together, right? Or, on the surface, we might not think they offer lenses to consider each others' works through. But Kathryn Duncan, a professor of English at St. Leo University and our guest today on Florida Book Club, has literally written the book on that very subject, and she'll discuss it with us on our final episode of Season 4!

Don't be fooled by the asinine title. Or the ludicrous plot. Or the fact that it stars Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. Or the dollar-store CGI effects. Instead, enjoy Mega-Python vs Gatoroid for its unintentional and accidentally poignant subtexts about Florida wildlife.

Florida film historian Lisa Bradberry joins me to talk about the rich history of Florida filmmaking, the years early in Oliver Hardy's career when he lived and worked in Jacksonville, and her favorite Florida movies! There's a link to an episode of Florida Crossroads on our website where Lisa appears in a segment beginning at about 12:45, also!