Kayaking North Florida’s Sacred Springs & Rivers

Gainesville, Florida, has grown from a small agricultural community in the north-central part of the state to a thriving city. Many people have had a hand in Gainesville’s evolution. After befriending the Timucuan Indians, who had originally inhabited the region, the Spanish began recruiting other settlers to move to the area. Despite those valued contributions, however, the people who brought the railroad to Gainesville deserve the most credit for giving the town its start. Soon after tracks were laid through the city, small businesses sprouted and opportunities for new industries arose. The city’s population expanded along with its economic growth, and more people began to witness the unique potential of Gainesville. In 1905, the city became home to the University of Florida, and a rich educational heritage began. The university brought great attention to the town and subsequently made Gainesville one of the most important cities in the state and one of the most prominent educational epicenters in the South.

Young Jody adopts an orphaned fawn he calls Flag and makes it a part of his family and his best friend. But life in the Florida backwoods is harsh, and so, as his family fights off wolves, bears, and even alligators, and faces failure in their tenuous subsistence farming, Jody must finally part with his dear animal friend. There has been a film and even a musical based on this story.

This is the first detailed history of one of the oldest houses in Alachua County, Florida: the Haile Homestead. Fully illustrated with many photographs, most of which were in private collections, this history deals with an important family in the county's history and brings the story of the house up to the present.

First published in 1942, Cross Creek Cookery was compiled by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings at the request of readers who wanted to recreate the luscious meals described in Cross Creek -- her famous memoir of life in a Florida hamlet. Lovers of old-fashioned, down-home cooking will treasure the recipes for Grits, Hush-Puppies, Florida Fried Fish, Orange Fluff, and Utterly Deadly Southern Pecan Pie. For more adventuresome palates, there are such unusual dishes as Minorcan Gopher Stew, Coot Surprise, Alligator-Tail Steak, Mayhaw Jelly, and Chef Huston's Cream of Peanut Soup. Spiced with delightful anecdotes and lore, Cross Creek Cookery guides the reader through the rich culinary heritage of the deep tidal South with a loving regard for the rituals of cooking and eating. Anyone who longs for food -- and writing -- that warms the heart will find ample portions of both in this classic cookbook.

This new paperback edition of Paynes Prairie still offers the sweeping history of the shallow-bowl basin in the middle of Florida, just south of Gainesville, but now adds a guide to outdoor activities that can be enjoyed in the state preserve there today, along with maps of trails for biking, hiking, and canoeing.