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The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle) |  | Author: Susan Orlean
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $0.01
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Seller: Yankee_Clipper_Books_
Rating:  169 reviews
Sales Rank: 24463
Media: Paperback
Edition: 17th
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
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
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Product Description
ISBN-044900371x
Amazon.com Review
Orchidelirium is the name the Victorians gave to the flower madness that is for botanical collectors the equivalent of gold fever. Wealthy orchid fanatics of that era sent explorers (heavily armed, more to protect themselves against other orchid seekers than against hostile natives or wild animals) to unmapped territories in search of new varieties of Cattleya and Paphiopedilum. As knowledge of the family Orchidaceae grew to encompass the currently more than 60,000 species and over 100,000 hybrids, orchidelirium might have been expected to go the way of Dutch tulip mania. Yet, as journalist Susan Orlean found out, there still exists a vein of orchid madness strong enough to inspire larceny among collectors. The Orchid Thief centers on south Florida and John Laroche, a quixotic, charismatic schemer once convicted of attempting to take endangered orchids from the Fakahatchee swamp, a state preserve. Laroche, a horticultural consultant who once ran an extensive nursery for the Seminole tribe, dreams of making a fortune for the Seminoles and himself by cloning the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii. Laroche sums up the obsession that drives him and so many others: I really have to watch myself, especially around plants. Even now, just being here, I still get that collector feeling. You know what I mean. I'll see something and then suddenly I get that feeling. It's like I can't just have something--I have to have it and learn about it and grow it and sell it and master it and have a million of it. Even Orlean--so leery of orchid fever that she immediately gives away any plant that's pressed upon her by the growers in Laroche's circle--develops a desire to see a ghost orchid blooming and makes several ultimately unsuccessful treks into the Fakahatchee. Filled with Palm Beach socialites, Native Americans, English peers, smugglers, and naturalists as improbably colorful as the tropical blossoms that inspire them, this is a lyrical, funny, addictively entertaining read. --Barrie Trinkle
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 169
 Fast! April 16, 2010
bookworm
This book arrived THE NEXT DAY! Important, because my daughter had to read it for a class, and she procrastinated on the project...
 I listened to this Audio CD for the wrong reasons and came out ahead March 17, 2010
mj (Silicon Valley, CA United States)
I've a weird habit of reading the books that movies are based on, just to see how they differ. I didn't like Cage & Streep's Adaptation, but the book helped me understand what the movie was really about. I.e., the screenwriter faced the hopeless task of following his instant cult classic "Being John Malkovich" with a script based on a book of minute details about orchid production and obsession. So he wrote himself into the story, placed Susan Orlean in a torrid affair with newly minted pornographer John LaRoche, and then threw LaRoche to the alligators. Such a neat way to tie up loose ends! I also didn't realize that the porno website part of the movie was a true story.
But getting back to the book, I enjoyed listening to the 5-disk audio book on its own merits. I learned that there are 80,000 varieties of orchids, plus 80,000 hybrids, and the British started the whole damn hobby. That many careers and marriages were lost to orchids. That the word orchid comes from the greek (latin?) word for testicles. That orchids take 7 years to flower from seed. That wild orchid roots wind around trees, so to steal the flowers, LaRoche cut off the tree branches they were growing around. That the Seminoles were the first tribe to build a casino on sovereign native American land. That self-confidence can be contagious.
That's about 8 more facts than I usually pick up from a book. So thank you Susan Orlean, for a great read. And I hope that screenwriter made up that stuff about your posing for LaRoche's website.
Starts off strong, but slows down a bit in the middle... August 15, 2009
Thomas Duff (Portland, OR United States)
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean was another recommendation from a friend in terms of a book I would enjoy. And overall, I did enjoy it. Little did I know that a simple flower could have such history and obsession behind it...
This is a true story that covers Orlean's trip to Florida to meet John Laroche, a strange and quirky person who figures as the criminal referenced in the title of the book. Laroche was brought to trial for removing protected plants (orchids) from the Fakahatchee swamp area in Florida, a protected piece of land. He was working with the Seminole Indian tribe at the time, as the land is located on their property. His plan was to get the orchids and start cloning them for sale by the reservation, thereby making "millions" by his estimate. But like many of his quirky plans and schemes, it never quite came to fruition. Orlean follows him around for a period of time, meeting the personalities that make up the orchid world, tramping through swamps up to her waist (and higher in places), and falling in love with the flower that has driven so many people over the years.
The story started off very strong. Her writing is humorous, and Laroche is a character that's easy to laugh at. She captures his bizarre nature and appearance perfectly, and I felt like I knew him quite well by the time the book was done. A large part of the middle portion of the book goes into the history of the orchid along with the history of the people who gave birth to the orchid industry as it is today. That's where I thought things slowed down. The style went from crazy people and interactions to history going back over decades and centuries. While I appreciated the history lessons, it was a noticeable departure from the earlier tone I had expected and enjoyed. It picked back up at the end as she was trying to finish her quest with a sighting of the ghost orchid, and the flavor of the earlier chapters once again emerged.
Overall, it was a good read. And like many good books, my view and perception of the orchid will never quite be the same. I'll appreciate it much more, and wonder what craziness brought that particular flower to that particular time and space.
The Orchid Thief May 23, 2009
alittlebitofheaven (Miami, FL USA)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was very pleased with both the condition of the book and it's swift arrival. I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't the original cover, showing the Ghost Orchid.
hidden treasures - or "titillating tidbits" of history... December 18, 2008
FTATA23@aol.com (Massachusetts)
With all due respect to the author and her plot... I will always value my reading of this book for the other things I learned from it - the fascinating nuggets of history of the Seminoles, especially. So, thank you Ms. Orlean for expanding your article into this very enjoyable book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 169
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