Customer Reviews

The Key West Reader: The Best of the Key Wests Writers 1830-1990

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I recently purchased my third copy of this book, having bought it the first time in Key West when it was first published nearly twenty years ago. One copy finally fell apart from re-reading, the other was loaned out for the final time and not returned. This anthology captures the soul of Key West as revealed by many of its most famous writers: John Dos Passos, Elizabeth Bishop, Hunter S. Thompson, Robert Frost, Hemingway. Most of the selections are short and include poems, story excerpts, essays. Philip Caputo's description of the Gulf Stream, and the marlin that lurk within it, is one of the most beautiful pieces ever written on either of those subjects. Jim Harrison writes that "Porpoises dance for as long as they live ..." Bishop describes how "the norther churns/the pale-green sea until it turns/to lime milk sherbet." Sunken ships, lost souls, hurricanes. The collection, in so many ways, captures the troublesome and sad intersection of our desperate and failing lives with the timeless power and beauty of the natural world. A perfect bedside reader; a must for the literary traveler going to Key West.

Marsh Muirhead - Author of "Key West Explained - a guide for the traveler."

A great read of writers who have experianced living and visiting Key West, in their time. That said, read William Williamson's novels, Some Came First, Some Came Naked, Some Came After,to pick up, where they went away.