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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 |
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| My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere | 
 enlarge | Author: Susan Orlean
Publisher: Random House
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $0.17
You Save: $24.78 (99%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 674212
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0679462937
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4
EAN: 9780679462934
ASIN: 0679462937
Publication Date: September 28, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: smudge on outside
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-7 of 7 | | « PREV | | |
Traveler in a Strange Land October 31, 2004
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
Susan Orlean's new book is one more argument in favor of the theory that all writing is travel writing. Most of the pieces in My Kind of Place have appeared in The New Yorker Magazine and others. They cover a wide range of offbeat topics.
Since these articles are all over the map, so to speak, you may end up picking and choosing. Some are very short and personal, others are longer and more journalistic. Some of my favorites were the piece on baby beauty pageants, in which Orlean brings out the rather creepy aspect of such contests very subtly; the taxidermy convention, also a surreal occasion; and a stay in Midland, Texas, a dusty oil town whose claim to fame is being the hometown of George W. Bush.
Orlean's travels outside the States were also good, just not quite as interesting as when she explores the weirdness that exists in our own back yard.
 Compelling against my will. October 26, 2004
11 out of 21 found this review helpful
This is a book of short stories. I don't especially like short stories. Her stories tend to describe small events and everyday people. I look for large important things. I want a beginning, a middle and an end. These stories tend towards being unforced and open ended. But when I wake up at 3 AM, as I did this morning, to read a few more of her stories, I know I'm a fan and I want people to know about this book. I love it when I like stories I'm not interested in.
Most travelers observe places as they go by in comfort and safety. They look for towers and cathedrals and the biggest and the most expensive. The locals are typically barriers that keep them from their quest of finding things to talk about when they get home. Susan travels to find people who can gave her pieces of interesting things that happen so that she can put them together as her travel stories.
I've traveled some too, mainly for my work. How I wish that when I get home my writings are even a fraction as compelling as hers.
But what catches me most in her stories is the vision I have of Susan traveling into places most tourist don't see. Openly sharing her thoughts with strangers AND listening to theirs. All the while flashing a mop of red hair from atop of a slender frame.
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