The Wright Stuff – James Wright's recent and forthcoming books

James David Wright (1947–2019)

Welcome to The Wright Stuff, a web page devoted to the books I have written, am writing, or may write in the future. The book projects are in three categories: Recently Published, In Press, and Work in Progress. Scroll through the categories to read book summaries, publishers and publication dates, current status, and related material. You can also learn more about me personally on the About page and read (and respond to) miscellaneous essays on all sorts of topics at my Blog.

My most exciting current project is A Florida State of Mind: An Unnatural History of our Weirdest State, now available from Thomas Dunne Books. See an excerpt at my Blog.

Florida is a state where Outback Steakhouse frequently ranks as the number one restaurant in the local Zagat survey, where college football and stock car racing are nearly as important as God, where 15 acres of habitat for storks, ibises and sand hill cranes were sacrificed to build Dolly Parton’s Dixie Stampede, a local tourist attraction that opened in 2003, closed in 2008, and was demolished in 2012 to make way for expansion of a nearby outlet discount mall. It is a state where traffic congestion is consistently rated as the leading threat to the quality of life; whose cities are consistently rated the least safe in America for bicyclers and pedestrians; that leads the nation in annual shark attacks and where a dozen or so people are bitten by alligators every year. Yet despite it all, it is also a state that draws a hundred million annual visitors and has become the world’s number one tourist destination. In short, a state of contradictions, humor, tragedy — America’s weirdest state!

Hunger in the Land of Plenty

“Food insecurity” and related issues are now on the national political agenda, but much of the literature (for example, that dealing with “food deserts” or the benefits of SNAP participation) is little more than wishful thinking. Our book clears away a lot of the underbrush in the literature so the principal features of the policy landscape stand out more clearly. Read More about “Hunger in the Land of Plenty: A Critical Look at Food Insecurity”…

Fun Florida Factoids

Florida’s first state flag bore the legend, “Let us Alone.”
“Every bizarre story in the country now has a Florida connection. I don’t know why, except it must be some inversion of magnetic poles or something.” — Carl Hiaasen
The Cuban sandwich is not native to Cuba. The ham and pork delectation was invented in Ybor City, now a Tampa suburb and the original home of the American cigar-rolling industry.
Surf-line Magazine describes Volusia County, FL, as the “sharkiest place on earth.” The county has recorded as many as three shark bites in a single day.

All this and much more in A Florida State of Mind: An Unnatural History of Our Weirdest State.

Social Problems, Social Issues, Social Science

In 1946, the British poet W. H. Auden wrote a poem titled “Under Which Lyre,” in which he penned the Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not sit with statisticians, nor commit a social science.” Social Problems, Social Issues, Social Science is a chronicle of a life spent more or less exclusively sitting with statisticians and committing social science – that is, my life, recounted as a narrative spun through the papers, reviews and polemics I published in Society magazine between 1972 and my retirement.