BOOKPATHS

Bookpath: Indian River, Florida

Oranges, by John McPhee (New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, reissue 1975)

First published in 1966, Oranges, initially "conceived as a short magazine article,” was one of the first books written by the prolific John McPhee. In his hands “the botany, history and industry” of oranges becomes fascinating. Although McPhee follows the migration of oranges worldwide, time spent in Indian River, Florida, is of particular interest as he pursues botanists, pickers, packers, and growers.

John McPhee

"With aerospace and realty interests preempting the northern shores of the Indian River, new plantings have been made in the south. Until 1959, all groves were within two or three miles of the ocean. They had to be, since most of the length of the river is paralleled, a couple of miles inland, by vast savannas, which are largely under water nine months of the year.

Much of the west bank of the river is a kind of loaf of ground, described by Floridians as a 'bluff' even when it rises only thirteen feet above sea level. But it is high ground indeed compared to what lies beyond it. The savannas reach out to the western horizon, low and flat, filled with saw grass and cat-o'-nine-tails, small cypress trees, and occasional hammocks covered with cabbage palms. Otter live in the savannas, and alligators, wildcat, quail, deer, rabbit, wild turkey, water moccasins, and rattlesnakes.” – from Oranges, by John McPhee

Cross Creek, Florida

“Cross Creek is a bend in a country road, by land, and the flowing of Lochloosa Lake into Orange Lake, by water. We are four miles west of a small village of Island Grove, nine miles east of a turpentine still and on the other sides we do not count distance at all, for the two lakes and the broad marshes create an infinite space between us and the horizon.” – from Cross Creek, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
August 8, 1896 – December 14, 1953

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings was born on August 8, 1896, in Washington, D.C. In 1928, she purchased 72 acres at Cross Creek, Florida. She lived there for 25 years, describing the landscape in Cross Creek and in her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Yearling. Her house and land now comprise Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park, “restored and…preserved as it was when she lived here.” Visitors are welcome daily from 9:00 to 5:00 p.m.

“A spring as clear as well water bubbled up from nowhere in the sand. It was as though the banks cupped green leafy hands to hold it. There was a whirlpool where the water rose from the earth. Grains of sand boiled in it. Beyond the bank, the parent spring bubbled up at a higher level, cut itself a channel through white limestone and began to run rapidly down-hill to make a creek. The creek joined Lake George, Lake George was part of the St. John’s River, the great river flowed northward and into the sea.” – from The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The Everglades, Florida

The Swamp : the Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise, by Michael Grunwald (New York : Simon & Schuster, 2006)

In The Swamp : the Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise, Washington Post writer, Michael Grunwald, has written “the story of the destruction and possible resurrection of the Everglades.” He transports readers from the Ice Age to the present, “illuminating the natural, social and political history of one of America’s most beguiling but least understood patches of land.” Grunwald’s book should be required reading for all who care about the survival of the Everglades and the planet itself.

This is the story of the Everglades, from useless bog to national treasure, from its creation to its destruction to its potential resurrection. It is the story of a remarkable swath of real estate and the remarkable people it has attracted, from the aboriginals who created the continent's first permanent settlement in the Everglades, to the U.S. soldiers who fought a futile war of ethnic cleansing in the Everglades, to the dreamers and schemers who have tried to settle, drain, tame, develop, sell, preserve, and restore the Everglades. It's a story about the pursuit of paradise and the ideal of progress, which once inspired the degradation of nature, and now inspires its restoration. It's a story about hubris and unintended consequences, about the mistakes man has made in his relationship with nature and his unprecedented efforts to fix them.” – from The Swamp : the Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise, by Michael Grunwald

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