Celebrate Florida: Defending the Sunshine State's Reputation as the Best State Ever!

John Wm. Jacobs: Well packaged timely delivery even included a receipt! A merry Christmas gift for a Florida liver.

United States on Oct 26, 2023

Bonnie5310: The man speaks the truth ! We have some of th weirdest people on earth here, but he’s funny telling us what we missed…

United States on Oct 07, 2023

Duane L. Carrell: I have always loved Dave Barry and his rather warped sense of humor. When I opened the book, I went straight to the chapter on The Villages. Living here, I was laughing out loud as I could tell FOR SURE he had been here and his insights were spot on. The rest of the book was just as good!

United States on Sep 09, 2023

Baret K.: I have read every book that Dave has written and was never disappointed.. and this is yet again another masterclass from the master. You must read this book.. read ALL his books.

United Kingdom on Jun 16, 2023

Zsofia Sz: Hilarious book. Worth to read it. The quality of the book is low so as a gift, not the best but in content, it's very funny

United Kingdom on May 31, 2019

M.E. Cameron: Disappointing. I used to buy every Dave Barry book that came out (his column wasn't carried in my city's newspaper), and had to remember not to read them while eating or I'd be sure to choke because I was laughing so much. Had only read his novels of recent years and decided to get caught up on his essay collections. This one, I think I chuckled a few times, but that was all. Maybe he's getting tired, or turning more serious with age, or maybe I'm just not that interested in visiting his beloved state of Florida. (Sorry, Floridians, I just don't like hot weather and insects/alligators/snakes.) This rather pale imitation of his earlier works certainly didn't inspire me to plan a vacation there. Too much attempt to make the state sound nicer and safer than its reputation? The result was disappointingly flat.

Canada on Jan 14, 2019

Cliente Amazon: I have the entire Dave Barry oeuvre. Every book continues to make me laugh with every rereading.
I offer one of his books for bedtime reading when I have overnight guests.

Canada on Jan 23, 2017

Scott Hedegard: Hands down the looniest writer to ever have a regular column syndicated nationwide, Dave Barry has tickled who knows, hundreds of thousands if not millions of readers over the years, and while he has retired from the Miami Herald, he still does books and delights his regular cadre of fans, or "alert readers", as he used to refer to those of us who were always sending in the weirdest news items we could find to him.
"Best. State. Ever." is a homage to his home state of Florida, and he chooses to defend it by visiting some truly strange places and reporting on his findings. In the pre-interstate days, Florida, like other states, especially those in the Midwest and Great Plains, where agriculture was the king and tourism was unthought of outside of driving through a state such as Iowa, my first home state as a kid for example was a mecca for all sorts of strange roadside attractions designed to pull weary drivers off the roads and into their gyp joints. Barry himself gave a hilarious example in a previous book, and excuse me for not recalling the book it was in, by talking about the miles and miles of enormous billboards shrieking out the next fascinating attraction, and city...

United States on Jan 19, 2017

MaggieG13: I have been a fan of Dave Barry’s humor for most of the 25 years that he has been writing columns, so I was anticipating a great read. He starts out with a strong first chapter, in which he takes on the state of Illinois and their penchant for electing governors who end up in prison. This was in response to a member of the media in Illinois who called Barry wanting to know what is wrong with people in Florida. Dave says he gets these calls about the mental health of Florida every few months and he traces it back to the 2000 election. I think all of us living here at that time received at least one phone call or e-mail from family or friends wondering the same thing, “What’s going on down there?”

Barry on the day after election day November 2000: “Meanwhile, the morning skies over the state were darkened by vast fleets of transport planes swooping in from Washington, D.C., opening their doors and dropping tens of thousands of election lawyers. Some landed in the Everglades and were consumed by Burmese pythons. But, tragically, many survived, and, without taking time to remove their parachutes, they commenced filing lawsuits.” Thus was born the nation’s...

United States on Oct 12, 2016

David WinebergDavid Wineberg: Dave Barry needed to rant about Florida, his home for the past 30 years. Best. State. Ever. is a Florida travelogue. He visits a bunch of seedy, kitschy, tacky and otherwise uncomfortable places including a psychics town, a mermaid show, Spongeorama, Skunk Ape, Gatorland, and Key West, where all the beer is cold refreshing, without the comma.

The opening salvo is worth the SJ Perelman Prize, which does not exist, but which should be created for this one essay. It is a sharp, sardonic, sarcastic, aggressive and funny 30 pages comparing Florida to other states. The exaggerations are precious, the targets fat and juicy. It has been honed to perfection, reading like a Phyllis Diller set with a laugh at precisely every 12 seconds. You feel you are being bowled over, steamrollered and battered into submission: this man is the best. He can’t possibly keep this up for the whole book. He doesn’t.

All the following essays are trips he takes around the state, with his unremarkable experiences in them, and his bemused reactions to the flora and fauna. They are peppered with small, slightly unfocused black and white photos he took on the trips, (with a noted predilection for...

United Kingdom on Sep 06, 2016