Product Description 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 centres 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 colourful as the tropical blossoms that inspire them, this is a lyrical, funny, addictively entertaining read. -- Barrie Trinkle, Amazon.com --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Product Description The story of orchid thief and obsessive, John Laroche, and the bizarre world of the orchid fanciers of Florida. The world of the orchid hunters, breeders and showmen, their rivalries, vendettas and crimes, smuggling, thefts and worse provide the backdrop to an exploration of one of the byways of human nature, the obsessive world of the collector.

On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?
Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.
In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.
Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present—from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as “The Human Encyclopedia” who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves.
Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.

“Magnificent.” —The New York Times * “Beguiling, observant, and howlingly funny.” —San Francisco Chronicle * “Spectacular.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis) * “Full of astonishments.” —The Boston Globe
Susan Orlean—the beloved New Yorker staff writer hailed as “a national treasure” by The Washington Post and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Library Book—gathers a lifetime of musings, meditations, and in-depth profiles about animals.
“How we interact with animals has preoccupied philosophers, poets, and naturalists for ages,” writes Susan Orlean. Since the age of six, when Orlean wrote and illustrated a book called Herbert the Near-Sighted Pigeon, she’s been drawn to stories about how we live with animals, and how they abide by us. Now, in On Animals, she examines animal-human relationships through the compelling tales she has written over the course of her celebrated career.
These stories consider a range of creatures—the household pets we dote on, the animals we raise to end up as meat on our plates, the creatures who could eat us for dinner, the various tamed and untamed animals we share our planet with who are central to human life. In her own backyard, Orlean discovers the delights of keeping chickens. In a different backyard, in New Jersey, she meets a woman who has twenty-three pet tigers—something none of her neighbors knew about until one of the tigers escapes. In Iceland, the world’s most famous whale resists the efforts to set him free; in Morocco, the world’s hardest-working donkeys find respite at a special clinic. We meet a show dog and a lost dog and a pigeon who knows exactly how to get home.
Equal parts delightful and profound, enriched by Orlean’s stylish prose and precise research, these stories celebrate the meaningful cross-species connections that grace our collective existence.

國寶作家筆下妙趣橫生的動物群像，展現人與動物意境紛陳的牽絆與連結。
「壯觀無比，令人驚嘆，大開眼界！」 ——《紐約時報》
「蠱惑人心，善於觀察且非常有趣！」 ——《舊金山紀事報》
「關於我們與動物已建立或未能建立的聯繫，如何在人類旅程中深刻地標記著我們自身的一種廣泛性思考。」—今日美國（USA Today）
一箱因主人搬遷而回不了家的信鴿
一個在自家後院偷偷養了23頭老虎的女人
一隻拒絕被野放回大海的明星虎鯨
一座媲美「勞碌者天堂」的驢子獸醫院……
以及，雞飛狗跳的田園生活、性格傲嬌的選美冠軍犬、動物園大排長龍等著被觀賞的熊
貓、鏡頭感十足的好萊塢動物明星、栩栩如生的動物標本……本書以15篇充滿張力的真實採訪，挑戰你對「人與動物的關係」的刻板印象！
蘇珊·歐琳是備受大眾喜愛的《紐約客》特約作家，也是暢銷書《蘭花賊》的作者，被《華盛頓郵報》譽為「國寶級作家」。「我們如何與動物互動，一直是哲學家、詩人和自然主義者長久以來關注的議題。」秉持著對動物的熱愛，歐琳親身走訪事件現場，調查來龍去脈，採集相關資料，在本書中結集了15篇關於動物的報導紀實，從各面向探討人類與動物不可思議的互動和關係。
書裡動物包括了被豢養的寵物、養來當食物的禽畜、被馴化的猛獸、提供勞役的馱獸等早已成為文化一環的各種動物，牠們在人類生活中扮演了重要角色，並於多元關係中展演出千姿百態的生命形貌。而作者選擇以一種毫不刻板的方式來刻畫牠們的存在定位和價值、思考真正的生態倫理、如何化解人性與動物的矛盾，企圖以非人類本位的視角，為所有生命發聲。
身為動物迷，如果你被《所羅門王的指環》吸引，如果你也喜歡《動物星球》頻道，比起在世界角落的野生獵奇，本書以更寬廣的倫理、情感、生態乃至文化面，探討那些與人類共同生活的動物們，如何在被馴化的同時，也形塑了人類生存的意義。