Rating: 
Summary: An engaging PEEK...
Review: First, a few caveats (it's always best to be up-front about ones biases and assumptions): 1) I haven't read Ms. Orlean's 'New Yorker' article, so I have no basis of comparison between it and this book. 2) I have never lived in South Florida, and have only visited Miami Beach twice, so my ability to say what is "true" about Florida's history and culture is somewhat limited and I won't even bother to attempt to verify any of Ms. Orlean's assertions. Fact - or slightly modified fact - I don't know...That being said, this book is a very enjoyable, engaging read. No, it does not have a particularly suspenseful or intriguing STORYline, especially if what you're looking for is an amazing-but-true mystery with high drama and a surprise ending. The author says, from the beginning, that she can only deal in the facts of the case - if she wants to keep this a non-fiction book, she's limited by real events. What she does, very successfully, however, is reveal the fascinating world of obsession and collecting - in this case, for a particular form of plant. And she does this with amazing ease and grace. Like her guides in the swamps, Ms. Orlean takes us through lessons in history, evolution, geology and botany - subjects which could be incredibly dry in someone else's hands - and connects them neatly with her incredible descriptions of current orchid mania - the characters, the controversies, and the competition. Her ability to make those connections allows the reader to take a step further, and make their own, outside of what she has written. I constantly found myself saying, "Oh my, that's the (explorer/patron/flower) that (did this/went there/made that)." Personally, I love that - the making of connections, between what the author shows and the reader already knows. That's when you get grabbed by what you're reading. And, again, the author's style is very engaging. Sure, she may repeat a fact once in a while, but that's only to reinforce the information she's given you about a set of fairly complex subjects - at least for the average reader (me). She takes you through her history lessons and personal experiences with arch wit and subtle humor (quote - somewhat bastardized: "I hate being in a swamp with machete-wielding convicts.") Some prefer anonymous journalism; Ms. Orlean injects her own experiences and thoughts into the story with a complete rejection of false objectivity; she's there, she's experiencing this, and the story is as much about her own voyage as anyone else's. Bottom-line? A very enjoyable book. Take it for what it is - I don't think the author has served it to us with any pretenses, so we shouldn't take it that way.
Rating: 
Summary: I know the swamp, and this book is fiction, not journalism.
Review: As someone who has worked for almost forty years with others who have fought to save south Florida's western Everglades,I looked forward to this book. But Orlean simply doesn't get it. Her cartoon characterization of the Seminole people is worse than inaccurate, it is old-fashioned stereotyping at its worst. The author paid so little real attention to the swamp she claims to have struggled through that she doesn't even know where it is -- her description, 25 miles south of Naples, would place that ancient cypress forest squarely in the Gulf of Mexico. Orlean's historical research is more than sloppy: how could anyone take an old Spanish account of lobsters in Florida's coastal waters and then write that these salt-water creatures were native to an inland fresh-water forest? Her discussion of more recent events is just as off base: Orlean's story of a would-be developer threatening violence against those who saved the Fakahatchee is actually (she correctly names the promoter's organization) about a man who threatened to kill me in a dispute over land no where near the Fakahatchee, in what is now the Big Cypress National Preserve. And the author doesn't even write accurately about Florida orchids (the Ghost orchid, for example is not as she claims found only in the Fakahatchee), much less the collectors who are obsessed by them. Orlean has skimmed very lightly through south Florida's rich cultural and natural history, and tossed what intrigued her into the Fakahatchee, a place that no reader will know much about after having read this book. Carl Hiassen's fiction is more accurate about people, places and events in south Florida than is this frothy and misleading book.
Rating: 
Summary: History, Quirky Characters, and Lots of Atmosphere
Review: I was actually a little disappointed with this book, having just read several rave reviews of it in the big year end "Best of"s in Time Magazine, the New York Times, and in one of the local papers here in Pittsburgh. Yet there are a lot of positive things that would make me lean toward recommending this book to someone else. It has several sections that really are fascinating and very well written, with the kind of attention to the minute details of real life that make non-fiction books like this so much fun to read. It also offers a pretty interesting glimpse into a world that most of us have never experienced or even heard about, namely that of Orchids and the men and women who live for them (sounds like a Jerry Springer Show topic, actually, and many of these people would fit right in on that show). It also includes a handful of completely off-kilter real life characters--ranging from a Seminole chief who plays rock and roll during the day and hunts endangered species at night to the main character, who begins the book as a free-lance (and semi-legal) botanist and ends the book as a purveyor of internet porn--who really jump off the page at you. And I always like those kinds of books that really draw you in to new worlds. In these aspects, the book really reminded me of John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. But having made that comparison, the book really does pale next to Midnight. Ms. Orlean never gets close enough to these people to really satisfy me and she never really dips deeper into their characters than to wonder at their slightly goofy, slighty compelling veneers. She even admits several times that she resisted getting too close to these people, as if they carried some kind of "orchid fever" that she could catch, eventually giving away all the orchids they gave her as presents and refusing to buy any at the shows she covered. Maybe if she had allowed herself to get imersed in the scene, then this would have been a better book. And my personal pet peeve: she repeats things--a lot. And not just once or twice, either. Some anecdotes, facts and stories are related three or four times, sometimes within pages of one another. I imagine this is because she was trying to flesh out what began as a magazine article into a full-length book, but there is a point in there where the editor definitely should have stepped in. So, overall, I can give a slight recommendation on the subject matter and a few very compelling passages alone. But my overall impression on finishing this book is that I find it very interesting that these people are spending their lives and hundreds of thousands of dollars, and risking prison time to acquire and grow these beautiful plants, but I'm left thinking that the question of "Why?" should have been answered better.
Rating:
Summary: THE UNWET DIVER
Review: FOR A BOOK ABOUT OBSESSION SUSAN ORLEANS FAILS TO BECOME POSESSED BY THE MANIA OF HER CHARECTURES AND THEIR CIRCUMSTANCES. SHE GIVES CLEAR GROUND FOR THEIR DEMENTIA TO BE CLEARLY SEEN. THE SAME HOWEVER CANNOT BE SAID OF THE NITTPICKING REVIEWERS WHO FAIL TO ENJOY A GOOD STORY ABOUT THE WEIRDNESS OF REALITY. ORCHIDS ARE A PRIME EXAMPLE OF THE BEAUTY OF THE OUTRE' AND THIS BOOK HITS TOO CLOSE TO HOME OF THE PEOPLE WHO ENGROSS THEMSELVES IN THIER ALLURE.
Rating:
Summary: BEAUTIFUL DESCRIPTIONS, BUT WHERE'S THE STORY?
Review: I read Susan Orlean's excerpt in the NEW YORKER and rushed out to buy the book as I wanted to find out more about John Larouche "the orchid thief". I soon found out that all the "meat" of the story was in the NEW YORKER article and the book was nothing more than "bun". I wanted/hoped THE ORCHID THIEF to be a "juicy" tale of intrigue and adventure, but there's only a little of that in the book. Mostly we follow Ms. Orlean around Florida looking at orchids and talking to strange orchid growers. Many of her descriptions are breathtakingly beautiful and vivid, but as a STORY it really falls short. I was disappointed. (No wonder the writer who is adapting this for the screen struggled to adapt this work. I read he finally had to make up a story that really has nothing to do with the book because there isn't one within these pages.)
Rating:
Summary: WHERE'S THE CHARACTER?
Review: Why didn't I just read the encyclopedia for information on orchids and the Seminoles? What was so special about Laroche as a character? Was he really that boring or does Orlean really write that horribly? I hate reading books with grammatical errors, especially by a New Yorker staff writer! The Good Life chapter's final sentence ends with a preposition. This book could discourage the population from reading. I totally understand why the Harry Potter series is doing so well on the best seller list.
Rating: 
Summary: Some times you feel like a nut.........
Review: This book is about the orchid growing scene in Florida and goes on at length about smuggling of native plants from the local preserve as well as around the world, the big orchid shows held there, the feuds between the prominent growers in the area and the generally wacky demeanor of the various colorful characters involved in the activities of orchid "society" in this suspiciously hot and humid local. If you have ever belonged to a specialty horticutural society and questioned your sanity when caught up in the thrall of your favorite plant, this book will make you feel like the very picture of placid normalcy when compared to orchid growers. Humorous, and a quick read, I recommend this book to all those plant persons who are not afraid of seeing perhaps the tiniest fragment of themselves reflected in the fascinatingly consumed characters portrayed in this book.
Rating:
Summary: a wonderful book!
Review: this is a really top-rate piece of non-fiction that reads like a novel. i disagree with those who have commented that it's "cold". it's funny and warm and the characters are portrayed with a lot of empathy, even the oddballs like laroche. i was completely engrossed through the whole book.
Rating: 
Summary: A New Yorker in Florida
Review: Although the premise of the work was quite interesting, Ms. Orlean fails in the execution. She is never able to comprehend a reality outside of her own, which makes for pedestrian similes (she describes the petals of a group of orchids as looking "shampooed and conditioned") and a superficial grasp of her subject. Although I wanted the book to be better, being very interested both in "Beauty" and in "Obsession", I found myself embarassed for the author as she stumbled through it, a stranger in a strange land, in rather an "Ugly American" fashion. She was never able to take the step outside of her own safe entitlement and privilege that is necessary for compassion and empathy. Her frequent reiterations of how "wierd" she found Laroche were thin and meaningless: never subjecting herself to the vulnerability of description which would allow the reader to make his own decision about Laroche's character, Ms. Orleans settles for epithets. This is a disappointing, cold and distant look at a subject that deserved a better chronicler.
Rating:
Summary: Book is all over the map
Review: I'm a writer by trade (news) and know how fickle the public can be, but I am still amazed at how successful this book has become. It's a pure and simple bore, with a choppy story that wanders all over world and at times seems to have lost any contact with the original focus.
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