Discover new Florida classics with the History Center book club

Our reading season continues

If you are a fan of stories that reveal the real Florida, you’ll love our history book club. This season includes fiction and nonfiction from established writers and emerging voices that shape how Florida is understood today.

Florida is always being rewritten. Every year, authors return to familiar cities, rivers, and coastlines to tell the story again. For anyone searching for a book club in the Tampa Bay area or simply looking for new Florida classics, this is a welcoming place to begin.

Upcoming books include David Morton’s Motion Picture Paradise!: A History of Florida’s Film and Television Industry (2024) shifts focus from story to documentation. His research reveals how filmmakers once turned Florida’s small towns and coasts into a national stage, shaping the image that visitors still carry today. Craig Pittman’s Welcome to Florida: True Tales from America’s Most Interesting State (2025) continues that thread through essays grounded in reporting and humor. His work captures the contradictions that make Florida both unpredictable and endlessly fascinating.

Robert W. Fieseler’s American Scare: Florida’s Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives (2025) adds another layer to the season. His investigation recovers stories long silenced by fear and policy, expanding how the state’s history is told. Read together, these books form a record of Florida that is as complex as the land itself. Each title offers a new entry point into the state’s ongoing conversation about identity, industry, and place. 

The book club meets on the third Thursday of each month from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.

See Florida through its storytellers

Joining our history book club is an invitation to see Florida through the minds of its writers. Each month, new readers find us when looking for a free book club in Tampa and connect by gathering at the History Center or logging in from home to explore stories shaped by the state’s landscapes and lives. Participants will meet other readers who share a love for Florida’s stories, humor, history, facts, and fiction. 

The Book Club is one of the History Center’s longest-running programs, and its focus is simple. If it relates to Florida, it is fair game. Fiction, nonfiction, and memoir open new ways of understanding the people, industries, and environments that define Florida.

The conversations reach beyond the page. At our Florida reading events for 2025, into the 2026 season, our novel list can lead to questions about preservation and growth. A biography might uncover a life that shaped a neighborhood or industry. Each discussion circles back to the museum’s own work in researching, collecting, and interpreting the stories that reveal how Florida became what it is today.

The reading list below is available at our Museum Store.

• Nov. 20 – Under Their Watch by Charlie Ketchey, reviewed by John B. Neukamm
  
• Dec. 18 – Motion Picture Paradise: A History of Florida’s Film and Television Industry by David Morton, reviewed by Shelley Blood
  
• Jan. 15 – Florida Palms: A Novel by Joe Pan, reviewed by Patty & Jerry Lyons
  
• Feb. 19 – Welcome to Florida: True Tales from America’s Most Interesting State by Craig Pittman, reviewed by Inace Massari
  
• March 19 – American Scare: Florida’s Hidden Cold War on Black and Queer Lives by Robert W. Fieseler, reviewer details forthcoming.
  
• April 16 – Silver Alert: A Novel by Lee Smith, reviewed by Val Wolf
  
• May 21 – Palm Meridian by Grace Flahive, reviewer details forthcoming.
  
• June 18 – The Final Episode: A Thriller by Lori Roy, reviewed by Cathy Clayton
  
• July 16 – Florida Book Review, reviewer details forthcoming.

Each work adds a new dimension. From Craig Pittman’s wry observations to Robert Fieseler’s unflinching history, to Lee Smith’s tenderness, the season unfolds like a series of interconnected galleries, offering both spectacle and reflection. You can find our book club selections by purchasing them on your own or by visiting our Museum Store to pick up a copy.

Discover Florida through reading

Join readers across Tampa who are finding new ways to see the state’s past and present. Whether you come for conversation or curiosity, our book club offers a meaningful way to engage with Florida’s story. For those seeking things to do in Tampa, this is a place to begin.

Register for the 2025 to 2026 book club season. Build historical literacy, strengthen your connection to Florida, and take part in the History Center’s ongoing mission to preserve and teach the state’s past through every form of learning, including the written word.