The Orchid Thief - A True Story of Beauty and Obsession

Zusatztext “Stylishly written! whimsical yet sophisticated! quirkily detailed and full of empathy . . . The Orchid Thief shows [Orlean’s] gifts in full bloom.” — The New York Times Book Review   “Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft! hatred! greed! jealousy! madness! and backstabbing.” — Los Angeles Times   “Orlean’s snapshot-vivid! pitch-perfect prose . . . is fast becoming one of our national treasures.” — The Washington Post Book World   “Orlean’s gifts [are] her ear for the self-skewing dialogue! her eye for the incongruous! convincing detail! and her Didion-like deftness in description.” — Boston Sunday Globe   “A swashbuckling piece of reporting that celebrates some virtues that made America great.” — The Wall Street Journal Informationen zum Autor Susan Orlean has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992 and has also written for Outside, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Vogue . She graduated from the University of Michigan and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She now lives in Los Angeles and upstate New York with her husband and son. Klappentext NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean's wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower-the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii-a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America's strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida's swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean-and the reader-will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion. In this new edition, coming fifteen years after its initial publication and twenty years after she first met the "orchid thief," Orlean revisits this unforgettable world, and the route by which it was brought to the screen in the film Adaptation, in a new retrospective essay. Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader's Circle for author chats and more. Praise for The Orchid Thief "Stylishly written, whimsical yet sophisticated, quirkily detailed and full of empathy . . . The Orchid Thief shows [Orlean's] gifts in full bloom."-The New York Times Book Review "Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing."-Los Angeles Times "Orlean's snapshot-vivid, pitch-perfect prose . . . is fast becoming one of our national treasures."-The Washington Post Book World "Orlean's gifts [are] her ear for the self-skewing dialogue, her eye for the incongruous, convincing detail, and her Didion-like deftness in description."-Boston Sunday Globe "A swashbuckling piece of reporting that celebrates some virtues that made America great."-The Wall Street Journal Leseprobe John Laroche is a tall guy, skinny as a stick, pale-eyed, slouch-shouldered, and sharply handsome, in spite of the fact that he is missing all his front teeth. He has the posture of al dente spaghetti and the nervous intensity of someone who plays a lot of video games. Laroche is thirty-six years old. Until recently he was employed by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, setting up a plant nursery and an orchid-propagation laboratory on the tribe's reservation in Hollywood, Florida. Laroche strikes many people as eccentric. The Seminoles, for instance, have two nicknames for him: Troublemaker and Crazy White Man. Once, when Laroche was telling me about his childhood, he remarked, "Boy, I sure was a weird little kid." For as long as he can remember he has been exceptionally passionate a...

Report

Stylishly written, whimsical yet sophisticated, quirkily detailed and full of empathy . . . The Orchid Thief shows [Orlean s] gifts in full bloom. The New York Times Book Review

Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing. Los Angeles Times

Orlean s snapshot-vivid, pitch-perfect prose . . . is fast becoming one of our national treasures. The Washington Post Book World

Orlean s gifts [are] her ear for the self-skewing dialogue, her eye for the incongruous, convincing detail, and her Didion-like deftness in description. Boston Sunday Globe

A swashbuckling piece of reporting that celebrates some virtues that made America great. The Wall Street Journal

Product details

• Authors: Susan Orlean
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 04.01.2000
• EAN: 9780449003718
• ISBN: 978-0-449-00371-8
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 137 mm x 208 mm x 18 mm
• Series: Ballantine Paperbacks
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Biographies, autobiographies; Orchidee