The bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book is back with this delightfully entertaining collection of her best and brightest profiles.Acclaimed New Yorker writer Susan Orlean brings her wry sensibility, exuberant voice, and peculiar curiosities to a fascinating range of subjects—from the well known (Bill Blass) to the unknown (a typical ten-year-old boy) to the formerly known (the 1960s girl group the Shaggs).P...

NATIONAL BESTSELLERNAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR, TIME, OPRAH DAILY, GOODREADS, AND MORE**“Brilliant…A high-spirited, exhilarating memoir.” —The Wall Street Journal • “In Joyride, the takeaway often has as much to do with the art of living as the art of writing.” —Elle • “Wise and exuberant…**It’s funny, as well. Just masterful.” —David Sedaris • **“Superbly good…Ebullient,...

The Orchid Thief is the true story of John Laroche, an obsessed Florida plant dealer willing to go to any lengths to steal rare and protected wild orchids and clone them, all for a tidy profit. But the morality of Laroche's actions do not drive the narrative of Orlean's strange, compelling, and hilarious book. She is much more interested in the spectacle this unusual man creates through his actions, including one of the oddest legal controversies in recent memory, which brought to...

How does Southern food look from the outside? The form is caught in constantly dueling stereotypes: It’s so often imagined as either the touchingly down-home feast or the heartstopping health scourge of a nation. But as any Southern transplant will tell you once they’ve spent time in the region, Southerners share their lives in food, with a complex mix of stories of belonging and not belonging and of traditions that form identities of many kinds.Cornbread Nation 7, edited ...

New Yorker writer and author of The Library Book takes readers on a series of remarkable journeys in this uniquely witty, sophisticated, and far-flung travel book.In this irresistible collection of adventures far and near, Orlean conducts a tour of the world via its subcultures, from the heart of the African music scene in Paris to the World Taxidermy Championships in Springfield, Illinois—and even into her own apartment, where she imagines a very...

“The best science and nature writing—which these stories represent—reminds us of the wide world and our connection to it, and the multitude of ways we make our place in it,” writes Susan Orlean in her introduction. This year’s collection masterfully guides us through exotic locations and groundbreaking research, leading us to consider complex and utterly fascinating questions about the world. How does it feel to camp in one of the hottest places on Earth? Is the ability to recognize and re...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOKIn Susan Orlean's mesmerizing true story of beauty and obsession is John Laroche, a renegade plant dealer and sharply handsome guy, in spite of the fact that he is missing his front teeth and has the posture of al dente spaghetti. In 1994, Laroche and three Seminole Indians were arrested with rare orchids they had stolen from a wild swamp in south Florida that is filled with some of the worl...

Susan Orlean’s bestseller, New York Times Notable Book, and Reese’s Book Club Pick is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post).On the morning of April...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • THE BASIS FOR THE FILM ADAPTATION DIRECTED BY SPIKE JONZE AND STARRING NICOLAS CAGE AND MERYL STREEPThe “eccentric, illuminating, [and] hilarious” (New York Daily News) true story of beauty and obsession in the swamps of Florida and the impassioned individuals who risk everything for the ultimate prize: a rare ghost orchid“Fascinating . ....

NATIONAL BESTSELLER“Magnificent.” —The New York Times * “Beguiling, observant, and howlingly funny.” —San Francisco Chronicle * “Spectacular.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)* “Full of astonishments.” —The Boston GlobeSusan Orlean—the beloved New Yorker staff writer hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post and the author of the New York Ti...

**From Susan Orlean—acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book—**Rin Tin Tin is “an unforgettable book about the mutual devotion between one man and one dog” (The Wall Street Journal).He believed the dog was immortal.So begins Susan Orlean’s sweeping, powerfully moving account of Rin Tin Tin’s journey from abandoned puppy to international movie-star dog ...

Only The New Yorker could fetch such an unbelievable roster of talent on the subject of man’s best friend.This copious collection, beautifully illustrated, features articles, fiction, humor, poems, cartoons, cover art, drafts, and drawings from the magazine’s archives. The roster of contributors includes John Cheever, Susan Orlean, Roddy Doyle, Ian Frazier, Arthur Miller, John Updike, Roald Dahl, E. B. White, A. J. Liebling, Alexandra Fuller, Jerome Groopm...