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All purchases come packaged with my humble gratitude – thank you for supporting my work as I document the unique history and ecology of Florida and the Gulf Coast!

The Unlikely Parks of Tampa Bay: A Scenic History – Consider these improbable vistas found along the shores of Tampa Bay—an abandoned island fortress stands guard over a federally-designated bird sanctuary. The remains of a ruined cross-bay bridge are repurposed into one of the best fishing spots in the bay. A failed movie studio serves as the backlot to a thriving intertidal mangrove forest. An active power plant provides the region’s most reliable refuge for vulnerable manatees.

From Philippe Park to Fort DeSoto, from Boyd Hill to Weedon Island, from the Skyway Fishing Pier to Big Bend Manatee Viewing Center—The Unlikely Parks of Tampa Bay: A Scenic History offers a rousing look at the roundabout backstories behind ten of the region’s most beloved natural spaces. Featuring more than 130 stunning photos, it is also a reminder—in case you needed it—that wild Florida is very much alive in Tampa Bay.

Look inside the book here!

Florida’s Mangroves: A Slightly Salty History – They rise, limbs interlocked like a mighty phalanx engaged in a slow northward march along Florida’s coast. Collectively, they are battered and diminished after a century-long struggle. Yet, dutiful and resilient, they stand strong against hurricanes, storm surge, as well as their deadliest foe, the dreaded South Florida real estate developer. They are mangroves—a truly remarkable and underappreciated form of plant life.

Florida’s Mangroves: A Slightly Salty History lays out the glorious past, tenuous present, and hazy future of Florida’s mangrove forests. Reporting from the Ten Thousand Islands to Cedar Key, from Weedon Island Preserve to Flamingo Point at the southern tip of Everglades National Park, and incorporating 140 lavish photos, historian Thomas Kenning offers a lively primer on the way that human activity in Florida has shaped—and, in turn, has been shaped by—the state’s great, hopefully not late, mangrove forests.

Get an exclusive preview of the book!

Natures Own Attraction COVERNature’s Own Attraction: A History of Florida’s Roadside Springs  – The decades after World War II were a golden age for roadside attractions in the Sunshine State. The advent of the family automobile put Florida’s exotic flora and fauna within easy reach for millions of curious Americans. Entrepreneurs were happy to meet that demand, setting up for-profit nature parks around four of Florida’s most splendid natural springs—at Silver Springs, Homosassa, Rainbow Springs, and Weeki Wachee.

Lovingly documented across more than 135 full-color photographs, Nature’s Own Attraction: A History of Florida’s Roadside Springs presents a living history of Florida’s bygone roadside era—a special kind of man-made Florida wildness vying for attention alongside the native, natural Florida wilderness that we all know and love.

Here’s a preview of some of my favorite images from the book.

Abandoned Coastal Defenses of Alabama is a down-and-dirty guided tour through Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, documentary evidence of a rich past slipping inexorably into ruin. For nearly two hundred years, these hauntingly beautiful Third System forts have stood stubbornly between the Yellowhammer State and a sometimes hostile world beyond. Threatened by a rising sea, disintegrating under the weight of centuries, Forts Morgan and Gaines have been named “one of the nation’s ten most endangered battle sites” by the American Battlefield Trust.

Here’s a preview of some of my favorite images from the book. You can also read an excerpt from the book.

img_1737Abandoned Florida: Sunshine Sentinels is a stunning visual survey of Florida’s historic coastal defenses – those sun-faded outposts of empire, crumbling now on shifting sands near the end of the beach. It is a guided tour in book form, perfect for these stay-close-to-home kind of times! Seven thrilling tales, supplemented by 140 original images reproduced at the highest quality, providing a view of the Sunshine State that rarely makes the postcard.

Here’s a preview of some of my favorite images from the book. You can also read an excerpt from the book.

Abandoned Washington DC – Get the whole picture with more than 350 never-before-seen full-color photos of DC in decay, accompanied by essays and stories of urban exploration in the nation’s capital. Glossy, heavyweight pages, suitable for any coffee table or bookshelf.

Take an exclusive look at DC’s forgotten corners!