National Library Week runs from April 3 to 9, and to commemorate this wonderful celebration, we have made a list of books that take place in Miami. The Magic City has inspired these fantastic authors to write from non-fiction, to the city's vice and crime, its rich history, and more. So don't forget to pick a copy of one of the following books at one of the 48+ Miami-Dade Public Library branches so you, too, experience Miami through the magical words of these writers.
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By: Jennine Capó Crucet / Library Checkout
Lizet Ramirez, a first-generation Cuban-American student, handles her family's expectations and her school in her first year of college in Making Your Home Among Strangers. Her difficulties are exacerbated by her mother's growing participation in the case of Ariel Hernandez, a young Cuban child who has arrived in Miami after being rescued, and the way that story draws attention to her as a minority student at a predominantly wealthy, white university.
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By: Marvin Dunn / Library Checkout
Black Miami in the Twentieth Century is the first book dedicated to the history of African Americans in South Florida and their essential role in the birth and development of Miami. It follows their victories, drudgery, horrors, and courage over the first 100 years of the city's history.
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By: Carlos Eire / Library Checkout
Carlos Eire's book, Learning to Die in Miami, examines the ramifications of forming a new American identity at the expense of his old Cuban self's "death" during the Cuban Revolution. Carlos must learn to manage the disparities between his past and present life along the way, including redefining his connection with his distant parents, learning a new language, and adopting new habits and traditions. Readers will be captivated by Eire's powerful first-person tale of immigration in America. Carlos is tortured by terrible periods of loneliness and abandonment while striving to find his feet in his new homeland. Learning to Die in Miami is a universal narrative about the anguish of letting go and the benefits that come with it.
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By: Elmore Leonard / Library Checkout
Rum Punch is set in West Palm Beach and Miami, Florida. It follows Jackie Burke, a forty-four-year-old hostess for a low-cost airline who has been smuggling illegal funds into the United States for small-time gunrunner and wannabe criminal lord Ordell Robbie.
By: Diana Abu-Jaber / Library Checkout
Felice is turning eighteen after five years of scrounging for food, drugs, and shelter on Miami Beach. She and the family she left behind must face the repercussions of her actions and make life-affirming decisions about what matters most to them now and in the future.
By: Susanna Daniel / Library Checkout
Stiltsville was the family's island paradise—until it vanished, leaving Frances to figure out how to get her family to work on dry land. Frances and Dennis struggle with the mutability of love and Florida's weather and temptation, chaos, and disappointment against a setting of lush tropical splendor.
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By: Charles Willeford / Library Checkout
Detective Hoke Moseley retires to his room at the run-down El Dorado Hotel after a grueling day of investigating a quadruple homicide. When he hears a knock on the door, he doesn't hesitate because his guard is down. He ends up in the hospital the next day, horribly bruised and with his jaw wired shut. He considers the 10 years of cases he's worked on and wonders who would want to knock him out, steal his gun and badge, and, most significantly, steal his valued dentures. He has to keep connecting the few clues to a dimwitted hooker, her ex-con lover, and the odd murder of a Hare Krishna pimp, but the pieces never quite match up to revenge.
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By: Nicholas Griffin / Library Checkout
The Year of Dangerous Days is a fascinating, peek-between-your-fingers chronicle of an American metropolis on the verge of extinction" (Kirkus Reviews). This slice of history is brought to life via intertwined human experiences, with a cast that includes legendary individuals such as Jimmy Carter, Fidel Castro, and Janet Reno. At the heart of the story are Edna Buchanan, a Miami Herald reporter who breaks the story about a wrongful murder and a shocking police cover-up; Captain Marshall Frank, the hardboiled homicide detective tasked with investigating the murder; and Mayor Maurice Ferré, the charismatic politician who watches the case, and the city, fall apart.
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By: Carl Hiaasen / Library Checkout
A newspaper reporter turned private eye pits his wits against a reporter he used to work with a would-be Cuban terrorist, a black former Miami Dolphin football player, and a Seminole Indian. He wanted to atone for the deaths of his ancestors and homelands in this hilarious mystery novel. The bad guys' overarching goal is to make tourism in the Miami area so unsafe that people would flee in droves, enabling the area to revert to its pre-development state, allowing animals and birds to reclaim the land that was once their natural habitat.
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By: Roben Farzad / Library Checkout
Hotel Scarface is an astonishing piece of investigative journalism that offers an unmatched view into the rise and fall of cocaine—and the Mutiny—in Miami. It is based on rare interviews and never-before-seen documents.
Photography by: Courtesy Ricardo Esquivel, Pixabay/Pexels
