Search results for ""Author Susan Orlean""

A New York Times Book of the Year, 2018A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICKA dazzling love letter to a beloved institution - our libraries.After moving to Los Angeles, Susan Orlean became fascinated by a mysterious local crime that has gone unsolved since it was carried out on the morning of 29 April 1986: who set fire to the Los Angeles Public Library, ultimately destroying more than 400,000 books, and perhaps even more perplexing, why? With her characteristic humour, insight and compassion, Orlean uses this terrible event as a lens through which to tell the story of all libraries - their history, their meaning and their uncertain future as they adapt and redefine themselves in a digital world. Filled with heart, passion and extraordinary characters, The Library Book discusses the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives.

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Rin Tin Tin was born on a battlefield in France towards the end of WW1. He died in 1932, supposedly in the arms of Jean Harlow, the original 'blonde bombshell', epic in death as he was in life. In his prime, he was one of Hollywood's the biggest stars. He received two thousand fan letters a month, had jewels, furs and a private driver, had his paw-print set for posterity on Hollywood Boulevard and was credited with saving Warner Brothers from bankruptcy - twice. His owner, Lee Duncan, was so completely devoted to him that when his wife sued for divorce she cited Rin Tin Tin as co-respondent. Rin Tin Tin's story is a great yarn with a big heart and, in Susan Orlean's hands, it is also very funny. But at its core lies a profound and moving meditation on the idea of heroism: of what it means to dream of a figure who is brave and bold and strong, and why those ideals hold such power over our imagination. This book is set to become an eccentric classic.

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Susan Orlean first met John Laroche when visiting Florida to write for the New Yorker about his arrest for stealing rare ghost orchids from a nature reserve. Fascinated both by Laroche and the world she uncovered of orchid collectors and growers, she stayed on, to write this magical exploration of obsession and the strange world both of the orchid obsessives and of Florida, that haunting and weird 'debatable land' of swamps and condos, retirement communities and real-estate scams. The world of the orchid hunters, breeders and showmen, their rivalries, vendettas and crimes, smuggling, thefts and worse provide the backdrop to a fascinating exploration of one of the byways of human nature, the obsessive world of the collector, and the haunting beauty of the flowers themselves.

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'Every essay in this book is magnificent... Mesmerizing.' New York Times'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 neighbours 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.

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Since its founding in 2011, The Atavist Magazine 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 non-fiction storytelling. The collection includes Leslie Jamison’s landmark portrait of a lonely whale named “52 Blue”, Matthew Shaer’s harrowing account of a shipwreck during Hurricane Sandy, and James Verini’s prize-winning tale of romance and courage in Afghanistan. The fascinating and original writing in Love and Ruin demonstrates why The Atavist has become the leader in publishing “remarkable... can’t look away pieces of multimedia journalism” (The New York Times).

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