The Orchid Thief

Author: Susan Orlean
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0307795292
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii—a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida’s swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean—and the reader—will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion. In this new edition, coming fifteen years after its initial publication and twenty years after she first met the “orchid thief,” Orlean revisits this unforgettable world, and the route by which it was brought to the screen in the film Adaptation, in a new retrospective essay. Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. Praise for The Orchid Thief “Stylishly written, whimsical yet sophisticated, quirkily detailed and full of empathy . . . The Orchid Thief shows [Orlean’s] gifts in full bloom.”—The New York Times Book Review “Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing.”—Los Angeles Times “Orlean’s snapshot-vivid, pitch-perfect prose . . . is fast becoming one of our national treasures.”—The Washington Post Book World “Orlean’s gifts [are] her ear for the self-skewing dialogue, her eye for the incongruous, convincing detail, and her Didion-like deftness in description.”—Boston Sunday Globe “A swashbuckling piece of reporting that celebrates some virtues that made America great.”—The Wall Street Journal

The Orchid Hunter

Author: Leif Bersweden
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1780723350
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
He has just a few months to complete his quest – no one has ever done it before within one growing season – and it will require ingenuity, stamina and a large dose of luck.As he battles the vagaries of the British climate, feverishly chasing each emerging bloom, Leif Bersweden takes the reader on a remarkable botanical journey.This study of the 52 native species is a fantastic gateway into the compendious world of orchids – one that will open your eyes to the rare hidden delights to be found on our doorstep.Like Two Owls at Eton and My Family and Other Animals, The Orchid Hunter is a charming account of a precocious adolescent’s obsession with the natural world.Leif’s enthusiasm for his quest is infectious, as is the quiet conviction with which he keeps at it, showing how plant hunting can be the ultimate mindful activity.

Travels and Adventures of an Orchid Hunter

Author: Albert Millican
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Colombia
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Book Description

The Forbidden Orchid

Author: Sharon Biggs Waller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698187970
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Book Description
The adventures of a British girl in China, hunting for the orchid that will save her family. Staid, responsible Elodie Buchanan is the eldest of ten sisters growing up in a small English market town in 1861. The girls barely know their father, a plant hunter usually off adventuring through China, more myth than man. Then disaster strikes: Mr. Buchanan reneges on his contract to collect an extremely rare and valuable orchid. He will be thrown into debtors’ prison while his daughters are sent to the orphanage and the workhouse. Elodie can’t stand by and see her family destroyed, so she persuades her father to return to China once more to try to hunt down the flower—only this time, despite everything she knows about her place in society, Elodie goes with him. She has never before left her village, but what starts as fear turns to wonder as she adapts to seafaring life aboard the tea clipper The Osprey, and later to the new sights, dangers, and romance of China. She comes to find that both the world and her place in it are so much bigger than she’d ever dreamed. But now, even if she can find the orchid, how can she ever go back to being the staid, responsible Elodie that everybody needs?

The Orchid and the Emerald

Author: Timothy David Mack
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
ISBN: 1665046813
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Book Description
William Gunn wants nothing more than a quiet life. After returning home from the Napoleonic wars, he accepts a position on the Duke of Devonshire’s idyllic estate. Destiny, however, intervenes when his young daughter Sarah falls prey to a mysterious sickness, and Gunn must strike out once more into the unknown and search for an unusual cure—the black orchid, a plant found only in the forbidding Amazon rainforest, where the last man who saw it went insane. Across the Atlantic, American frontiersman Nathanial Yankee has left his country and his past behind to join a new revolution, fought by General Simón Bolívar to free South America from the Spanish. Nate, however, is no hero—he fights for land, and a chance at a fresh start. Pursued by a cruel enemy in a race against time, William and Nate must survive the battlefields of the Spanish Main, cross the snow-covered peaks of the Andes, and finally reckon with the rulers of a dying Amazonian empire. For one man, the goal is a chance to save his daughter’s life; for the other, a priceless treasure beckons. If they cannot learn to work together, one of a thousand enemies will kill them (that is, if they don’t kill each other first). Unbeknownst to them, both men are pawns in a far larger game, and some secrets cannot be hidden forever ...

The New Encyclopedia of Orchids

Author: I. F. La Croix
Publisher: Timber Press
ISBN: 0881928763
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 526

Book Description
The Infinitely Varied Orchid Family provides a never-ending source of unusual plants in a range of shapes, colors, fragrances, and sizes. As the demand for interesting and unusual species increases, so too does the need for a comprehensive reference on how to grow them. This encyclopedia, written by respected botanist Isobyl la Croix, offers detailed descriptions of 1500 cultivated species in 350 genera from Acampe to Zygostates. More than 1000 photographs will aid enthusiasts in choosing new plants for their collections as well as provide accurate ID.

Orchid

Author: Jayne Castle
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451624034
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Book Description
The wildly popular alter ego of bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz creates “delectably entertaining paranormal romantic suspense” (Booklist) in the “unique, synergistic world of St. Helen’s” (Library Journal ), the not-so-distant space colony where hearts and minds are gloriously in sync! A top psychic for exclusive Psynergy Inc., Orchid Adams has her hands full with a baffling murder—which doesn’t exactly allow time for husband hunting. Is it even possible there’s a man on St. Helen’s who measures up to her dreams of wedded bliss? Take her new client, Rafe Stonebraker: primitive and elemental, an unlicensed P.I. with some serious secrets, Rafe is hardly marriage material. So why does his powerful presence have Orchid imagining the most outrageous affair? Rafe is embroiled in solving a strange theft while thwarting a hostile takeover of Stonebraker Shipping; he needs a wife—and fast—to salvage his credibility. Orchid Adams doesn’t fit the profile he had in mind, but she fits in his arms. Will their electrifying connection end up getting them burned?

The Mushroom Hunters

Author: Langdon Cook
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345536274
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
“A beautifully written portrait of the people who collect and distribute wild mushrooms . . . food and nature writing at its finest.”—Eugenia Bone, author of Mycophilia “A rollicking narrative . . . Cook [delivers] vivid and cinematic scenes on every page.”—The Wall Street Journal In the dark corners of America’s forests grow culinary treasures. Chefs pay top dollar to showcase these elusive and enchanting ingredients on their menus. Whether dressing up a filet mignon with smoky morels or shaving luxurious white truffles over pasta, the most elegant restaurants across the country now feature one of nature’s last truly wild foods: the uncultivated, uncontrollable mushroom. The mushroom hunters, by contrast, are a rough lot. They live in the wilderness and move with the seasons. Motivated by Gold Rush desires, they haul improbable quantities of fungi from the woods for cash. Langdon Cook embeds himself in this shadowy subculture, reporting from both rural fringes and big-city eateries with the flair of a novelist, uncovering along the way what might be the last gasp of frontier-style capitalism. Meet Doug, an ex-logger and crabber—now an itinerant mushroom picker trying to pay his bills and stay out of trouble; Jeremy, a former cook turned wild-food entrepreneur, crisscrossing the continent to build a business amid cutthroat competition; their friend Matt, an up-and-coming chef whose kitchen alchemy is turning heads; and the woman who inspires them all. Rich with the science and lore of edible fungi—from seductive chanterelles to exotic porcini—The Mushroom Hunters is equal parts gonzo travelogue and culinary history lesson, a fast-paced, character-driven tour through a world that is by turns secretive, dangerous, and quintessentially American.

Orchids of the Hunter Region

Author: Elisabeth Burton
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780646848136
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 187

Book Description
A pictorial guide to orchids of the Hunter Region, NSW, Australia

Orchids of Britain and Ireland

Author: Anne Harrap
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408133237
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 481

Book Description
Orchids have long held a fascination, both for keen botanists and the general public. From the mania of Victorian collectors to the enthusiasm of modern photographers, this family of flowering plants has a strange and exotic appeal. Many orchids are beautiful, and some are rare. This well illustrated orchid guide covers the identification, biology and conservation of British and Irish orchids. Until recently, the whereabouts of the rarer species was shrouded in secrecy, making publication of any details ethically impossible. In the last few years, however, these veils have been lifted and it is now possible to publish locations for all but one or two species. For the first time, this book includes a detailed site guide, covering the best places to see orchids in Britain. "A model field guide: good, large photographs that are actually rather gorgeous; a clear text that tells you how to identify the plant using the English language rather than "botanicalese"; useful diagrams of those spectacular flower parts; and a really comprehensive section on geographical range and subspecies." The Daily Telegraph