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| The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People | 
 enlarge | Author: Susan Orlean
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $14.94 (100%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 155231
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0375758631
Dewey Decimal Number: 920.00904
EAN: 9780375758638
ASIN: 0375758631
Publication Date: January 8, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover February 15, 2001
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
I bought this book because I -- unlike the mean spirited reviewer from San Francisco -- love the way the author looks on the cover, OK? I've read Orlean's other books and her prose is beautiful, refined and deeply formatted. And, as the cover photo indicates, so is her sense of fun and adventure. She's my kind of writer: A woman with a sharp and openhanded sensibility.
 I loved this book. February 7, 2001
12 out of 14 found this review helpful
Susan Orlean writes with more grace, style and wit than anyone in the magazine world today. These well-reported, beautifully crafted profiles of both known and unknown characters show her at the top of her form. Orlean has a knack for being at the right place at the right time to capture a telling detail or quote and, contrary to the wrongheaded and ignorant comments in a few of the customer reviews here, she is, if anything, self-effacing and unobtrusive as she brings the reader deeply into the lives of her subjects. Literary journalism as an art form necessarily includes the author's voice and point of view -- these are what make it less artificial and far more interesting than standard "objective" reporting. The rave reviews for this book in the New York Times and other publications are well justified.
Better than Recent Reviews Suggest February 4, 2001
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
The other reviews included here provide an excellent synopsis of the book's format and subject matter. I do not read a great deal of non-fiction (outside of newspapers and case law), but did enjoy these well-written glimpses into the lives of "real" people. What gave me pause, however, was the fact that a few of these glimpses seemed dated and were, consequently, not as interesting or relevant as they might have been had I read them when they were current. The Fab Five Freddie and Tiffany profiles seemed particularly passe. I especially enjoyed the piece about "The Shaggs." The essay prompted me to download some of thier music, and with this background the piece came alive. Even my fifteen year old son asked to read and enjoyed the profile after hearing one of the tracks. Overall,I take issue with reviewers who have called the book ho-hum. I read it straight through and was amazed anew by the many ways we stumble into or onto what becomes our calling.
 What Happened to Our Susan Orlean? February 1, 2001
17 out of 21 found this review helpful
Before Susan Orlean became self-obsessed, she was a journalist who was posed to inherit the literary tradition of Didion, McPhee, Capote, Wolfe, etc. But something's happened. With the fluke popularity of the Orhard Thief--a very uneven book, one of those extended New Yorker articles that shuld have been left as is because it now reads as merely a struggle to fill up space--she's turned herself into a New York, high powered, high profile "celebrity" writer who seems to have lost touch with the small, quiet reporter who was fascinated first and foremost with her subjects...not herself. This book is a disappointment. How telling of her new attitude toward her subjects that on the cover of a book about OTHER people ("Encounters with Extraordinary People") she's posed seductively and made-up to the hilt. This is a shame of a book. I once adored this writer's older work.
booooooring! January 31, 2001
12 out of 21 found this review helpful
Another book about Susan Orlean, by Susan Orlean ... yes, she can write, but only when the topic reflects back onto her somehow. Part of John McPhee's artistry was a total lack of self-absorbtion; Orlean suffers from the opposite problem. And unfortunately for us, her life is just plain not interesting enough. And is that her on the cover? UGH.
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