No Place Like Home

No. 1: Sun and Rain

No, I do not miss the change of seasons. Bouts of rain I can watch from my enclosed screen porch provide seasonal change enough for me, especially if the rain is accompanied by lightning. I like the sun and heat and I love the rain.

No. 2: Performing Arts

The high quality of the performing arts-opera, ballet, symphony, theater-is remarkable. In addition, it takes just minutes to get to any venue, parking is easy, tickets are reasonably priced, and once you are inside the Sarasota Opera House or a theater, you can actually see the performers without binoculars. There's almost no major performer you can't see at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, and McCurdy's Comedy Club ranks alongside the best in the country.

No. 3: The Beaches

White sand beaches that never get hot underfoot. Warm water. Waves coming in gently at sundown. Pelicans diving. Gulls swooping. Sandpipers skittering. Miles of perfection that can calm even a hyperactive writer like me.

No. 4: Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

We have one of the country's top 10 botanical gardens right on the bayfront. Sitting by the banyan trees, walking through the orchid house with the sound of water from the small falls, or pausing to look at the cactus garden is close to bliss.

No. 5: Myakka River State Park

I'm a sucker for alligators. A lake full of slippery monsters flapping their tails or making their mating sounds beats almost any horror movie. Besides, they taste good.

No. 6: Bookstores

There are bookstores here in which I lose myself in euphoria. There's Sarasota News & Books downtown, where I sit over a cup of coffee and a scone once a week. On St. Armands, the compact Circle Books has a super-friendly staff. An often-overlooked gem is Coral Cove Books on South Tamiami Trail. Brant's is a rickety, tin-roofed wooden one-floor collection of thousands of used hardcover and paperback books. The floor creaks. The building looks as if it is about to fall over. I love it.

No. 7: Play Ball

I'm a softball junkie. I play in year-round leagues at the softball fields on 17th Street. When I'm not playing, I can watch some of the best softball in the nation, both men and women, or leagues which cover players from five to 90 years old. And when I want to see baseball, Ed Smith Stadium, with the Reds in the spring and the Sara Sox in the summer, is 10 minutes from home.

No. 8: I Confess, The Movies

I'm a movie nut. It is possible, within 20 minutes of just about anywhere you live in Sarasota, to see a different movie every night throughout the year.

Sarasota has Burns Court Cinema, three compact theaters run by the Sarasota Film Society, devoted to foreign and independent films and hosting a world-class Cine-World Film Festival every fall. And on the big screens of the Hollywood 20, there is the magnificent Sarasota Film Festival that allows fans to gawk at and talk to movie stars, producers, writers and directors.

No. 9: Food, Glorious Food

I love Thai food and there are more good Thai restaurants in Sarasota than there are in New York City. There's also a remarkable selection of wonderful ethnic and specialty restaurants including Italian, Peruvian, Brazilian, French, seafood and high cuisine.

No. 10: People, People, People

I have more close friends in Sarasota than I have ever had in my life. From the Liars' Club gathering of writers who meet every Friday for lunch, to the dozens of people I know through Sarasota Senior Softball, the Sarasota Fiction Writers, the Selby Gardens Associates and the regulars at the monthly film discussions we have at Barnes & Noble, it is rare-very rare-to go out and not run into someone I know well enough to have been at their home or they at my home.

Stuart M. Kaminsky is the author of 50 published novels, including several popular mystery series, and screenwriter of four films, including Once Upon a Time in America. The past president of the Mystery Writers of America, he has been nominated for six prestigious