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Summary: Another great read from Eric Hansen
Review: First I read Motoring with Mohammed aloud to my family. We all loved it, and couldn't wait to read Eric Hansen's take on another subject. Who would have guessed a story about orchids could be this interesting and take us to so many unexpected places. Hansen's eye for details and the absurd keeps the reader riveted. Now on to Stranger in the Forest!
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Summary: Orchid Fever should be retitled "Orchid Addicts in Action"
Review: An entertaining book, especially for those of us who are already addicted to orchids. It's comforting to know that there are others out there who are even nuttier!
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Summary: ORCHID FEVER
Review: ORCHID FEVER is funny, bizarre and so well-written that even a
dedicated orchidist can laugh at the lunatic fringe so well
characterized in the book. It's a good read whether you grow
orchids or prefer pavement to plants!!!
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Summary: excellent!!!!
Review: thank you eric hansen for yet another wonderful book. i have enjoyed each of eric's book so, and i didn't think they could be topped, but this one does it for me! ric seaberg
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Summary: Hilarious, fascinating even if you don't garden.
Review: I do NOT raise orchids, but after reading Hansen's STRANGER IN THE FOREST (about his trek across Borneo) I couldn't wait to read ORCHID FEVER... His first chapter is as good as STRANGER; well-written, visual descriptions, insightful characterizations and his usual ascerbic wit/commentary on the absurdity of the orchid world kept me glued to the book. Alas, since it's so short, I couldn't bear the thought of it ending, so I took more than a month to read it by only allowing myself to read a chapter per week. Since ORCHID is more of an anthology, a collection of essays on the most eccentric, bizarre characters that populate the orchid world, it didn't hurt to savor ORCHID in this manner because it's really not a book but a collection. The chapters on trekking into Borneo to collect undiscovered species and when he finally meets the mean-spirited orchid judges were highlights. I laughed out loud numerous times. My husband does not garden and he loved the book too... You don't have to be an avid gardener to enjoy this book. If you enjoy reading about truly wacko, obsessive people then it's irrelevant if you can't tell an orchid from a lily, you will still find this book fascinating.
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Summary: Great Book!!
Review: I bought this as a present for my Mother, and she loved it to death. Orchid Fever is a collection of stories dealing with the bizzare behavior that orchid lovers will engage in so as to serve their obsession. These stories are outlandish, frequently hilarious, and all quite true. It is well worth the purchase price to give this fine book to the orchid lover you hold most dear.
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Summary: Is there a vaccination
Review: This is a wonderful book. Interesting, well written, and it makes me want to read all his other books.I thought I had been cured of my orchid fever, but reading this book just brought it back after 20 years in remission.
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Summary: dork kid to orchid
Review: I bought this in Malaysia where I used to live. Ah! More stuff on Borneo by that Yank nut who got lost in there years ago. Let's see what he is up to now. I knew nothing about Orchids. Now I do. And I have been from Turkey and their ice cream and back to Kuching in Borneo where Hansen visits a shady character up the road from where I used to live. And now he has inspired me to write a play called Orchid Biology for my school in Japan. Nor more am I a dork kid. Rave on Hansen and pass the paphedophilums.
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Summary: Crazy Flowers, Crazy People
Review: In Orchid Fever there are beautiful flowers, yes, but the real allure for Mr. Hansen is always the people who are crazy enough to live life to the max, with passion and joy.
Whether he is drinking tuak and dancing til dawn while being hunted with a blowgun (Stranger in the Forest), facing down machine gun toting desert Nomads (Motoring with Mohammed), or leading a pack of orchid crazy biologists packing camouflage cardboard toilets in the jungle (Orchid Fever), Mr. Hansen never fails to amuse, inform and enlighten the reader. He travels the world in search of people who laugh at life's absurdities, flaunt authority, defy rules and convention and live their lives based on self-defined values and dreams.
Read Orchid Fever and find smugglers, philosophers, scientists, writers, collectors, beaureaucrats, politicians, heroes and losers, all opened up for an examination of the soul within and the culture that produced them. Don't miss it!
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Summary: Unputdownable
Review: This book is a "go-away, don't-disturb-me" tour de force - utterly gripping, superbly crafted, fantastically researched, with excellent character cameos, and a very skillful light touch on both the appalling and the ridiculous. It is also by far the most "human" book I have read in years. It makes you laugh and gasp by turns. And though it is complete, it leaves you with a pang of regret, because you want to stay in this rich world Hansen has conjured up.
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