From Florida's swamps to its courtrooms, the New Yorker writer follows one deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man's possibly criminal pursuit of an endangered flower. Determined to clone the rare ghost orchid, Polyrrhiza lindenii, John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America's strange flower-selling subculture, along with the Seminole Indians who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean -- and the reader...

Bess, George and I are heading down to Key Largo, Florida, to enjoy some fun in the sun with my old friend, marine biologist Delia Duke. But it seems that Delia's state park is clouded over with mystery: Someone has been poaching the park's rare butterfly orchids. Their future depends on us! George seems more interested in searching for treasure in the Catalina, an old sunken Spanish galleon, than in hunting for an orchid thief. My hope is that George,...

“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...

As heard on NPR's This American Life
“Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air
“One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor
A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground...

Allegedly found in the ruins of a bombed-out dog kennel in France during World War I, then brought to Los Angeles by Lee Duncan, the soldier who found and trained him, by 1927 Rin Tin Tin had become Hollywood's number one box-office star. Susan Orlean's book--about the dog and the legend--is a poignant exploration of the enduring bond between humans and animals. It is also a richly textured history of twentieth-century entertainment and entrepreneurship....

"One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever." -Christian Science Monitor "Fascinating from the first page to the last-you won't be able to put it down." -Southern Living A rollicking true-crime adventure and a thought-provoking exploration of the human drive to possess natural beauty for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's...

"Melody Ellison is impressed by her sophisticated new friend, Leah Roth, but she wishes her cousin Val would stop being so standoffish to Leah! Melody meets Leah's grandfather, Dr. Roth, a botanist who escaped the Nazis and brought a rare and valuable Lady's Slipper orchid with him to America. When Melody's own grandfather becomes a suspect in a burglary, Melody turns to Val and Leah for help. Yet Leah seems to be hiding something, something to do...