Florida has long been a beacon for retirees, but for many, the American dream of owning a home there was a fantasy. That changed in the 1950s, when the so-called "installment land sales industry" hawked billions of dollars of Florida residential property, sight unseen, to retiring northerners. For only $10 down and $10 a month, working-class pensioners could buy a piece of the Florida dream: a graded home site that would be waiting for them in a planned community when they were ready to build. The result was Cape Coral, Port St. Lucie, Deltona, Port Charlotte, Palm Coast, and Spring Hill, among many others—sprawling communities with no downtowns, little industry, and millions of residential lots. In The Swamp Peddlers, Jason Vuic tells the raucous tale of the sale of residential lots in postwar Florida. Initially selling cheap homes to retirees with disposable income, by the mid-1950s developers realized that they could make more money selling parcels of land on installment to their customers. These "swamp peddlers" completely transformed the landscape and demographics of Florida, devastating the state environmentally by felling forests, draining wetlands, digging canals, and chopping up at least one million acres into grid-like subdivisions crisscrossed by thousands of miles of roads. Generations of northerners moved to Florida cheaply, but at a huge price: high-pressure sales tactics begat fraud; poor urban planning begat sprawl; poorly-regulated development begat environmental destruction, culminating in the perfect storm of the 21st-century subprime mortgage crisis.

Six months after its American introduction in 1985, the Yugo was a punch line; within a year, it was a staple of late-night comedy. By 2000, NPR's Car Talk declared it "the worst car of the millennium." And for most Americans that's where the story begins and ends. Hardly. The short, unhappy life of the car, the men who built it, the men who imported it, and the decade that embraced and discarded it is rollicking and astounding, and one of the greatest untold business-cum-morality tales of the 1980s. Mix one rabid entrepreneur, several thousand "good" communists, a willing U.S. State Department, the shortsighted Detroit auto industry, and improvident bankers, shake vigorously, and you've got The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History. Brilliantly re-creating the amazing confluence of events that produced the Yugo, Yugoslav expert Jason Vuic uproariously tells the story of the car that became an international joke: The American CEO who happens upon a Yugo right when his company needs to find a new import or go under. A State Department eager to aid Yugoslavia's nonaligned communist government. Zastava Automobiles, which overhauls its factory to produce an American-ready Yugo in six months. And a hole left by Detroit in the cheap subcompact market that creates a race to the bottom that leaves the Yugo . . . at the bottom.

Christopher Knowlton, author of Cattle Kingdom and former Fortune writer, takes an in-depth look at the spectacular Florida land boom of the 1920s and shows how it led directly to the Great Depression. The 1920s in Florida was a time of incredible excess, immense wealth, and precipitous collapse. The decade there produced the largest human migration in American history, far exceeding the settlement of the West, as millions flocked to the grand hotels and the new cities that rose rapidly from the teeming wetlands. The boom spawned a new subdivision civilization—and the most egregious large-scale assault on the environment in the name of “progress.” Nowhere was the glitz and froth of the Roaring Twenties more excessive than in Florida. Here was Vegas before there was a Vegas: gambling was condoned and so was drinking, since prohibition was not enforced. Tycoons, crooks, and celebrities arrived en masse to promote or exploit this new and dazzling American frontier in the sunshine. Yet, the import and deep impact of these historical events have never been explored thoroughly until now. In Bubble in the Sun Christopher Knowlton examines the grand artistic and entrepreneurial visions behind Coral Gables, Boca Raton, Miami Beach, and other storied sites, as well as the darker side of the frenzy. For while giant fortunes were being made and lost and the nightlife raged more raucously than anywhere else, the pure beauty of the Everglades suffered wanton ruination and the workers, mostly black, who built and maintained the boom, endured grievous abuses. Knowlton breathes dynamic life into the forces that made and wrecked Florida during the decade: the real estate moguls Carl Fisher, George Merrick, and Addison Mizner, and the once-in-a-century hurricane whose aftermath triggered the stock market crash. This essential account is a revelatory—and riveting—history of an era that still affects our country today.

Many are surprised to discover that Cape Coral's history dates back further than the boom of the 1960s. Indeed, homesteader families were living a rough-and-tumble life in the Cape's wilderness for much of the 20th century. Still, there is no denying that the city took a turn with the arrival of Jack and Leonard Rosen in 1957. These visionaries brought their Gulf American Land Corporation to Southwest Florida and built a modern city from scratch. Model homes, roads galore, an airport, a police force, the Cape Coral Country Club, the Nautilus Motel, and the famous Rose Gardens-all rising out of the woods on the north shore of the Caloosahatchee River. Hundreds of miles of canals were dug so that nearly every home was on or near the water. Hollywood celebrities turned out to promote properties to Northerners looking for the good life in sunny Florida. It was one of the largest planned developments ever in the United States-and it was a rousing success.

Two of Washington's most meddlesome reporters take readers on a deep dive into the murky underworld of President Trump's Washington. Markay and Suebsaeng dish the hilarious and frightening dirt on the charlatans, conspiracy theorists, ideologues, and run-of-the-mill con artists who have infected the highest echelons of American political power. The result is an uncompromising account of the financial and moral degradation of our capital, told with righteous indignation and through the lens of key power players and foot soldiers whose own antics have often escaped the notice of the overworked press corps. -- adapted from jacket.

Offers a comprehensive look at the history of the state of Florida, from its discovery, exploration, and settlement through its becoming a state, to notable events in the early twenty-first century.

Friday Night Lights meets The Bad News Bears in “a brisk, warmhearted reminder of how professional sports can occasionally reach stunning unprofessional depths” (Publishers Weekly): the first two seasons with the worst team in NFL history, the hapless, hilarious, and hopelessly winless 1976­–1977 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Long before their first Super Bowl victory in 2003, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers did something no NFL team had ever done before and that none will ever likely do again: They lost twenty-six games in a row. This was no ordinary streak. Along with their ridiculous mascot and uniforms, which were known as “the Creamsicles,” the Yucks were a national punch line and personnel purgatory. Owned by the miserly and bulbous-nosed Hugh Culverhouse, the team was the end of the line for Heisman Trophy winner and University of Florida hero Steve Spurrier, and a banishment for former Cowboy defensive end Pat Toomay after he wrote a tell-all book about his time on “America’s Team.” Many players on the Bucs had been out of football for years, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to have to introduce themselves in the huddle. They were coached by the ever-quotable college great John McKay. “We can’t win at home and we can’t win on the road,” he said. “What we need is a neutral site.” But the Bucs were a part of something bigger, too. They were a gambit by promoters, journalists, and civic boosters to create a shared identity for a region that didn’t exist—Tampa Bay. Before the Yucks, “the Bay” was a body of water, and even the worst team in memory transformed Florida’s Gulf communities into a single region with a common cause. The Yucks is “a funny, endearing look at how the Bucs lost their way to success, cementing a region through creamsicle unis and John McKay one-liners” (Sports Illustrated).

Most of us hardly ever think about those ubiquitous things that hang—along with wreaths, light fixtures, and the occasional delivery attempt notice—at our front door: house numbers, our address. Taken for granted in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, house numbers have the crucial burden of organizing the places of the world—and they do it with zero fanfare or appreciation. In this unique illustrated history, Anton Tantner pays long-overdue tribute to those unassuming combinations of digits, showing that house numbers haven’t always existed, and that they have their own interesting history, one he spells out with vivid images from around the world. As Tantner shows, house numbers started their lives in a gray area between the military, tax authorities, and early police forces. With an engaging style, he moves from the introduction of house numbers in European towns in the eighteenth century, through the spread of the numbering system in the nineteenth century, and on into its global adoption today. He uncovers a contentious past, telling the stories of the many people who have resisted having their homes so systematically ordered. Along the way, his visual journey showcases a surprising diversity of house number displays, visiting historic addresses from the London house on Strand-on-the-Green that is numbered “Nought” to 1819 Ruston, Louisiana. The result is a story that will forever change the way you see a city, one that elevates the seemingly insignificant house number to an important place in the history of urban planning.

Paul Press" feature, "A Century Of Stories, " chronicles 100 years worth of incredible Minnesota tales. 122 photos.