| 
A Key West Bed and Breakfast....
Boasting an incomparable location at the midpoint of Duval Street, The Tropical Inn is a quiet and private island compound. You might walk down Key West's most famous promenade a hundred times and not notice this romantic hideaway, tucked unassumingly away just steps from all the bustle and excitement |
|
|
| The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle) | 
 enlarge | Author: Susan Orlean
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $13.99 (100%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  166 reviews
Sales Rank: 18101
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 044900371X
Dewey Decimal Number: 635.934409759
EAN: 9780449003718
ASIN: 044900371X
Publication Date: January 4, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 orchids and land scams and plants, oh my December 8, 2005
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Few writers can make 282 pages about flowers interesting to an audience that does not care. Susan Orlean does just that in her novel The Orchid Thief: a true story of beauty and obsession. Orlean tells the story of John Laroche, an unorthodox conman and orchid enthusiast and follows him through the wild Florida swamplands and a trial as he helps Orlean discover the power of the orchid.
Woven between the topsy-turvy tales of Laroche, Orlean explores the history of orchid hunting, more specifically in southern Florida, and its effects as a fatal obsession through out history. Orleans does her homework and it shows. The back stories and additional information add to the story to illustrate things in a historical and "big picture" perspective. However, there is almost too much information and it is easy for the reader to forget the original purpose of the novel at times. Also, because so many different aspects of this story are covered, it's difficult to determine whether Orlean is writing a story about Florida's history, land scams, orchid hunting, Laroche, or obsession in general.
This was an ambitious undertaking and, in spite of the overindulgence of information, Orlean did an excellent job. She has a mastery of the language and I enjoyed her funny narrative style that tried to bring all these pieces together. I felt like I was with her every step of the way in gathering the information and interviewing the people that became this story.
 Strange and beautiful tale November 22, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
What a fascinating read! I was so impressed how Orlean undertook this research--all of the interest stemming from a small blip in the paper about Laroche. I particularly enjoyed the historical parts about the orchid hunters in the 18th and 19th century when the British Orchid Craze began. Her descriptions of Florida as the "last wild frontier" in the USA were quite interesting because I have never seen the state in such a way.
Wonderfully intriguing and an absolute delight to read!
I didn't know this was non-fiction at first; fabulous reading November 16, 2005
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I picked this book up based on the Ballantine's Reader's Circle logo. It took me until well into the first chapter to realize this was a non-fiction book, which made it all the more interesting.
Orlean's story originated as a piece for the magazine the New Yorker, and then she was so fascinated by her subject matter that she turned her work into a full-length book. I assume that the first chapter was the New Yorker piece, and it's a fascinating tale in which the reader becomes enamored of a man named Laroche, believing his story about the poaching of rare ghost orchids on federal land. When Orlean starts investigating further, the mainstream orchid-growing world doesn't seem to support Laroches's claims so well. His charlatan nature is eventually exposed when he gets Orlean lost in the swamp/forest of Florida in search of the elusive ghost orchid.
The book centers around the turf wars and disputes of the orchid-growing community. I had no idea there was such turmoil in the flower business before reading this book. Orlean touches on the raping of the Florida natural land, the historical treatment of the Seminole Native Americans, and the selling of worthless inaccessible plots of swampland to foolish Midwesterners. The book makes for fascinating reading, both as a seat-of-your-pants narrative and as a natural history of orchid-growing in the world and in Florida.
What's your passion? August 2, 2005
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Orlean, the author of this book, is a journalist, and the novel definitely reads like a journalist wrote it. First of all, there is no real plot line. This is not a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Rather, it reads like a feature story: an in-depth look at Florida and its history, the society of orchid collectors and hunters, and Orlean's own experiences with John Laroche, the orchid thief of the book's title. (The book was actually born out of a story that Orlean wrote for The New Yorker.)
While it can be a bit slow at times, the book offers fascinating insight into several microcosms of Florida. Orlean explores the history of land scheming in the state, the treatment of the Seminole Indians, and the smuggling of plants and animals that occurs in Florida. She also invites the reader to join her in the high-stakes world of orchid collecting, in which one plant might fetch thousands of dollars.
Orlean continually refers back to the passion of orchid collectors, characterizing their affinity for the plants as a type of mania. It was interesting to me, though, that Orlean herself experiences a similar mania - that of reporting. About half way through the book, I noticed that Orlean had gone to ALOT of trouble to write The Orchid Thief. She'd moved down to her parents house in Florida. She was driving all over the state of Florida to plant shows, orchid businesses, growers' fairs, etc. She was slogging through the Florida swamp in increasingly hot and buggy weather. She was spending copious amounts of time with John Laroche, a sometimes-irritating personality at best. It was interesting to me that she herself possessed a kind of mania, but that her mania (reporting/her job) is one that's much more acceptable to society. In other words, if you are in love with your job, fine. But if it's flowers you like, well, you're a little off kilter.
Anyway, I really enjoyed it, and I do recommend it. It can be a little slow in places, but it's worth forging ahead.
 Very Disappointing July 21, 2005
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
This is probably the most disappointing book of popular non-fiction that I've read lately. The sole interesting figure in the story, John Laroche, only figures in a few anecdotes in the story, and those anecdotes are far too short. People already interested in horticulture will not be impressed by the author's admittedly amateurish view of the subject, and large portions of the book are irrelevant to the subject promised by the title. Pages are devoted to the author's physical discomfort in Florida, and the author's cliched description of Floridian culture, as she sees it. Why Susan Orleans felt compelled to give minute descriptions of the wardrobes she prepared for each excursion she went on is beyond me. My feeling, like that of many others that were disappointed in this book, was that she needed filler for a very slight book that should have remained an article. Character studies of this type are much better done by writers like John McPhee. Orleans should stick to the fluff that she has churned out for the The New Yorker in the past.
|
|
|
Powered by Our Keywest | |
