I made a joke in my critical theory class at Florida State, in the fall of 1998, that I wryly reflect on now. I glanced at the Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels text we were studying, and laughed about how if it was the early 1950s, you might be harassed or blacklisted (or worse) for owning such a book. It seemed so outlandish a concept in the innocent 1990s. And yet, when I recently glanced at my copy of Ibrahim X. Kendi’s How to Be an Anti-Racist on my living room end table, such persecution seemed far less outlandish, sadly. Frank Furedi wrote in 2015 that reading has often been a feared activity, both on the part of readers and of moral, political, and social “authorities,” and has been since the existence of literature itself. I guess in that respect it’s not entirely surprising to see that fear reemerging at various points in our national narrative.
In the summer of 2025, one could be forgiven for thinking Florida is essentially an illiterate state; based on the proclamations of our so-called “leaders,” one could also be forgiven for thinking there’s a top-down war on reading that has the full-throated support of Floridians across the board. Naturally, that’s not even close to the case. Despite the overtones of a recent letter to Florida parents from state education “commissioner” Anastasios Kamoutsas, who sounds in the document like perhaps the least-qualified person to discuss anything academic or learning-oriented, Floridians of all demographics – ages, occupations, races, cultural traditions – love to read, based on my experiences and conversations.
In my own house, although this is hardly an objective or representative sample when discussing the state writ large, Holly Jackson’s Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Tim O’Brien’s America Fantastica, and Kotaro Isaka’s Three Assassins currently feature in our leisure reading. But I’m an academic, and in the humanities, etc., so it’s fair to say I’m kind of in my own bubble (I guess by extension my family might be in that bubble too!).
So I reached out to web designers, small-business owners, project managers, engineers, homemakers, hairstylists, retirees, educators, bartenders, and students of all ages, not knowing if they even read at all. But they all do. People working in health care, tech, event planning – they all read for leisure as well.
Such an immense array of genres, spanning fiction and non-fiction. Lots of book clubs. Audiobooks. E-readers. Physical books. Just about every Floridian I contacted, regardless of occupation, was consuming literature of some kind, in some medium, in settings individual and collective.
Here’s a sampling of what I discovered in my attempt to cast a somewhat wide net. There are readers of so-called “literary” fiction: Percival Everett’s James was mentioned by more than one respondent; Lauren Groff’s Florida, which has received some ink on this very site, was represented. Yann Martel’s Life of Pi and Paul Murray’s Bee Sting got shout-outs. The Grapes of Wrath and Go Down, Moses represent perhaps the more old-school throwback choices in this vein. I do have a friend who adores Russian literature, especially the 19th century masters, but she’s currently reading Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lancioni, which is neither Russian nor, as she attests, particularly literary.
Romance, fantasy, “romance smut,” and a number of adjacent-seeming genres to these abounded among the Florida readers I contacted. Trilogies and serial story-cycles are popular as well: Greogry Maguire’s Elphie, from the Wicked Series, Fern Michaels’ Sisterhood series, Sarah J. Maas’ Throne of Glass series, Rebecca Yarros’ Empyrean series, and books by Colleen Hoover and Raven Kennedy and Suzanne Collins and Matt Dinniman. Serialized narratives get lots of fans!
Five Types of Wealth (Sahil Bloom), Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (John Gray – talk about a throwback!), We Can Do Hard Things (Glennon Doyle), Dopamine Nation (Anna Lembke), and Barbarians At The Gate (Burrough and Helyer, another throwback!) were featured among the non-fiction Floridians are getting into. A lot of people also said “texts and emails,” which, whatever, but they’re technically non-fiction, right?
Jodi Picoult. Peter Straub. James Lee Burke. Lev Grossman. Tana French. Laurence Osborne. This Is How You Lose the Time War. Remarkably Bright Creatures. Gone Girl. Alex Michaelides. A.J. Finn. As mentioned earlier, it all encompasses an astounding range of genres and authors. Not bad for a state that to some outsiders must seem like one of the most anti-literate places in existence. Hell, it sometimes seems like that to those of us that live here.
Perhaps Mr. Kamoutsas, instead of pursuing divisive ideological agendas and proudly announcing his cowardly threats toward educators in ill-conceived and arrogant “letters” to parents, should really take the temperature of the room. Read the crowd, no pun intended, and see how deeply ingrained Floridians’ love of literacy is. Because coming off as an anti-reading, anti-education sycophant is probably not a winning strategy in the long run in Florida, to judge by the trends I’ve observed. (It also doesn’t do much for the morale of parents whose children love school and are looking forward to another year starting soon, on a related note.)
So – what are YOU reading right now? I would love to hear from you in the comments or replies! Let’s show them that Florida (and people everywhere) love their stories, their narratives, their books, their reading lives, no matter how fiercely some people want to rake that away.
