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Inside this book, find out how to:
Planning a trip to the Walt Disney World?
Be sure to also pick up Birnbaum's 2025 Walt Disney World: The Official Vacation Guide.
Suncoast Empire is the 2021 One Book Sarasota selection. You can read more about One Book here.
Published annually by dineSarasota, The Little Sarasota Dining Book offers information on over 200 of the best restaurants in Sarasota, Florida. This book is essential for locals and visitors trying to navigate Sarasota's crowded dining scene. It features restaurants in every imaginable cuisine category. It also contains interesting articles written by local food and dining professionals. Also, delicious recipes from some of Sarasota's best known restaurants.
Florida's landscape is a marvel of diversity, and Central Florida is its pinnacle. Footpaths range through salt marshes, river floodplains, and along coastal dunes and beaches. Trails pass through desert- like scrub islands, jungle- like hydric hammocks, and deep, dark bayous. There's no better way to take in this natural world than by walking it.
Ranging from 1 to 43 miles in length, each hike includes directions, a detailed map, and information on hike duration, difficulty, and trail conditions. Explore a new side of Florida, from hidden urban gems like the Circle Bar B Ranch in Lakeland and Ponce Preserve in Daytona Beach, to the quiet rural landscapes of Catfish Creek State Park and Chinsegut Hill.
Longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay - Finalist for the Southern Book Prize
A New York Times Critics' Best Books of the Year - An NPR Best Book of the Year - A NYLON Best Nonfiction Book of the Year - A Buzzfeed Best Nonfiction Book of the Year - An Entrophy Magazine Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year - A Brooklyn Rail Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year - A Baltimore Beat Best Book of the Year
A Paris Review Staff Pick - A Chicago Tribune Exciting Book for 2017 - A Rolling Stone Culture Index Reccomendation - A Buzzfeed Most Exciting Book for 2017 - A The Millions Great 2017 Book Preview Pick - A Huffington Post 2017 Preview Pick - A NYLON Best 10 Books of the Month - A Lit Hub 15 Books to Read This Month A Poets & Writers New and Noteworth Selection - A PW Top 10 Spring Pick in Essays & Literary Criticism- An Emma Straub Reccomendation on PBS
"One of the themes of 'Sunshine State, ' Sarah Gerard's striking book of essays, is how Florida can unmoor you and make you reach for shoddy, off-the-shelf solutions to your psychic unease.... The first essay is a knockout, a lurid red heart wrapped in barbed wire.... This essay draws blood." -- Dwight Garner, New York Times
"Unflinchingly candid memoir bolstered by thoughtfully researched history.... A nuanced and subtly intimate mosaic... her writing, lucid yet atmospheric, takes on a timeless ebb and flow." -- Jason Heller, NPR.org
"Stunning." -- Rolling Stone
"These large-hearted, meticulous essays offer an uncanny x-ray of our national psyche... showing us both the grand beauty of our American dreams and the heartbreaking devastation they wreak." -- Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You
Sarah Gerard follows her breakout novel, Binary Star, with the dynamic essay collection Sunshine State, which explores Florida as a microcosm of the most pressing economic and environmental perils haunting our society.
In the collection's title essay, Gerard volunteers at the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary, a world renowned bird refuge. There she meets its founder, who once modeled with a pelican on his arm for a Dewar's Scotch campaign but has since declined into a pit of fraud and madness. He becomes our embezzling protagonist whose tales about the birds he "rescues" never quite add up. Gerard's personal stories are no less eerie or poignant: An essay that begins as a look at Gerard's first relationship becomes a heart-wrenching exploration of acquaintance rape and consent. An account of intimate female friendship pivots midway through, morphing into a meditation on jealousy and class.
With the personal insight of The Empathy Exams, the societal exposal of Nickel and Dimed, and the stylistic innovation and intensity of her own break-out debut novel Binary Star, Sarah Gerard's Sunshine State uses the intimately personal to unearth the deep reservoirs of humanity buried in the corners of our world often hardest to face.
Roxanne says: Former New College Writer in Residence's comprehensive Florida book which profiles fascinating real life characters as well as weaving in her own chaotic upbringing.