Susan Orlean

"Susan Orlean reopens the unsolved mystery of the most catastrophic library fire in American history, and delivers a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution--our libraries"--

Twenty years ago, before she wrote The Orchid Thief or was hailed as a national treasure. Susan Orlean was a journalist with a question: What makes Saturday night so special? To answer it, she embarked on a remarkable journey across the country and spent the evening with all sorts of people in all sorts of places-hipsters in Los Angeles, car cruisers in small-town Indiana, coeds in Boston, the homeless in New York, a lounge band in Portland, quinceañera...

John Laroche, an obsessed Florida plant dealer, willing to go to any lengths to steal rare and protected wild orchids and clone them and all for a tidy profit. But the morality of Laroche's actions do not drive the narrative of Orleans' 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 together...

Blends fictional characters and situations with the lives of real people: obsessive orchid hunter John Laroche, "New Yorker" journalist Susan Orlean, Hollywood screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and his twin brother Donald. As Charlie struggles to adapt a best-selling book, he writes himself into the movie plot.

"Extraordinary stories of crime, passion, and adventure from The Atavist magazine, the trailblazing leader in longform narrative writing. Since its founding in 2011, The Atavist has garnered an unprecedented eight National Magazine Award nominations and was the first all-digital publication to win in feature writing. This collection presents the finest examples of a new kind of nonfiction storytelling as practiced by a young generation of longform...

NEW & NOTEWORTHY ~ THE NEW YORK TIMES 

With a Foreword by Susan Orlean, twenty-three of today's living literary legends, including Donna Tartt, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Andrew Sean Greer, Laila Lalami, and Michael Chabon, reveal the books that made them think, brought them joy, and changed their lives in this intimate, moving, and insightful collection from "American's Librarian" and recipient of the National Book

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Ann-Marie, a big-wave surfer on the North Shore of Oahu, drives to make a comeback after nearly drowning in a surfing competition. Her life becomes more complicated by her romance with a handsome football player. Ann-Marie and her surfer buddies work as maids at a posh resort and share a beach shack with Anne-Marie's wayward young sister. Ann-Marie struggles between her need to prove herself and her desire to take the easy way out.