The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

In 1994, John Laroche and three Seminole Indian men, were caught leaving a Florida Wildlife Preserve with bags full of Ghost orchid (Polyrrhiza lindenii) specimens. They challenged the arrest on the basis of a law allowing Native tribes to violate the endangered species act. Susan Orleans, a columnist for The New Yorker went to Florida to get the story. She befriended the weirdly charismatic Laroche, gained entry to the bizarre world of orchid collectors, and ultimately expanded the article into a book (and subsequently a movie).Ms. Orlean is as much part of this story as anyone else: she's there, she's experiencing this, and her thoughts and curiosity take us through lessons in history, evolution, geology, botany, and current orchid mania - the characters, the controversies, and the competition. Her style includes much wit and humor which makes for somewhat light reading and a few laugh out loud lines.Front and center are orchids - "a jewel of a flower on a haystack of a plant" - so evolved and diversified they've become "the biggest flowering plant family on earth because each orchid species has made itself irresistible." Orchids are "ancient, intricate living things that have adapted to every environment on earth." There are tens of thousands of varieties, and more being created by natural as well as man-made hybridization virtually every day. Orchids often outlive human beings. In fact, orchids can theoretically live forever, since they have no natural enemies.Orlean describes some extreme personalities of orchid people as an amusing side story. Some orchid owners designate a person as an "orchid heir" in their wills since the owners expect that their precious orchids will outlive them. Another reviewer commented: “This book will make you feel like the very picture of placid normalcy when compared to orchid growers.”“Laroche loved orchids, but I came to believe he loved the difficulty and fatality of getting them almost as much as the flowers themselves.” Laroche is a kindred spirit of those fellow orchid hunters of the 19th century who rescued fragile flowers in the midst of an erupting volcano in the Phillipines and a revolution in Columbia. An orchid from Burma was auctioned off in London “still attached to the human skull on which it had been found.”Southern Florida is an underlying theme. Many of us remember the famous land-scams of the 1950s and 60s. “ Florida land is elastic: you can make more of it.” (pg 122) Any dank Florida cypress swamp can be drained and remade… to look like a Tuscan village or an English town. Interesting characters appear every few pages: Snake Boy, frog poachers, Miss Seminole, Lee More the Adventurer, the Ghost Grader, Lord Mansfield, etc.The Fakahatchee Swamp is home of many wild orchids, Orlean comments wryly when plunging into brackish water up to the waist, and having to toe around for submerged alligators on the squishy bottom, "I hate being in a swamp with machete-wielding convicts."Indian rights and the Florida Seminole tribe and business interests are another side story. The legal similarities between Chief Billie and the panther and Laroche and the ghost orchids have a fine distinction.But the orchids! My thoughts are like the authors: “It’s like an explosion in a paint factory…” The flowers are interesting but the plant looks dead. “These flowers are poetic.” They are all so different. This one is speckled. “Here’s a weird shape. Look at this long tube.” The variety is overwhelming.

Just awesome! This book came onto my radar because of its starring role in Charlie Kaufman's 2002 film  Adaptation . There are four main reasons this book is great:1. the primary subject John Laroche (to whom the book's title infamously but non-exclusively refers) is an extraordinarily interesting person2. the author's description of Laroche's personality as well as of her interactions/dialogue with him are amazingly written and 100% engrossing3. the secondary subject of the book is not orchids like you might expect, it is actually the state of Florida, and the author's descriptions/musings on Florida itself - its strangeness, contrasted nature, and uniqueness in particular - are wonderful4. there is an underlying theme that ties the whole book together and arises naturally from Laroche, the other orchid collectors/thieves the author meets, as well as from the author herself: it is the nature of passion; and as a result the book is brimming with psychological insights and flashes of wisdomCharlie Kaufman realized that this was more than just a book about flowers when he read it, and you will realize it too when you read it. Personally I could care less about flowers, but the flower that John Laroche was so passionate about - the ghost orchid - plays such an interesting and mysterious role in the book and is so elusive and sought after by even the author herself that by the end of the book I wanted to see one too!I highly recommend you read the book and/or watch the movie (in either order), as this is a book wholly deserving of its starring movie role. Unlike any book/movie experience I've ever had.

You don’t have to be an orchid enthusiast to enjoy this story about a Florida man employed by the Seminole Indian tribe to establish an orchid propagation business in Hollywood, Florida in the 1990s. It’s easy to just sit back and let Orlean tell you about her adventures researching the man who became known as the Orchid Thief and the legal and illegal elements within the orchid industry.Orlean was sent to cover the story of a man, John Larouche, arrested for poaching orchids which is a Federal crime. She ended up covering not only Larouche’s tale but a host of others which share a common theme, an obsessive need on the part of some to find, collect and grow rare orchids. Larouche involvement in poaching orchids by his own account was on behalf of the Seminole tribe on land that theoretically was reserved for their use. At least that was his defense. As Orlean researches the case further she gets caught up trying to understand this wildly eccentric man who is not above bending rules to preserve and protect wild orchids and (Incidentally, of course, benefit himself.)Orlean wanders among the orchid crowd, the scientists, retailers, law enforcers, collectors, and smugglers drawing sharply rendered portraits of those on both sides of the law. She also outlines the case for less confusing laws governing the importation and classification of orchids as contraband.Along the way, Orlean is introduced to a collector of pre-Columbian art and smuggler who in his youth was determined to find new plant species. He began his career as a self-styled Indiana Jones, collecting and smuggling rare orchids out of the South American jungle. She describes a thrilling mission going into the Fakahatchee swamp stepping in sinkholes, battling insects, avoiding alligators and oppressive heat to find a rare ghost orchid in bloom.Orlean’s writing is entertaining with hilarious anecdotes mixed in with the more serious stories of environmental concern. Much of the humor is in her encounters with Larouche (she the NY writer and he the human oddity who lives by his own philosophy allowing poaching with a high-minded resolve.)If there is a flaw in Orlean’s reporting it's her tendency to digress. Although the title would imply this is a single story it’s a compilation of stories that are tangential to Larouche many times. But the stories are entertaining and informative, nonetheless.

Had to study this for a university writing course but actually really fell in love with Orlean's style of writing. She comes across as humble but curious; knowing she is a small part of something big that truly became worth obsessing over. This book is an impressively true tale of wacky incidences and the most bizarre trial there may ever have been. Full of laughter, but poignant points of reflection, and conviction. Thoroughly recommend.

If you find this review helpful ... please click the little "yes" box below.I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'The Orchid Thief'. Despite the fact that nothing much happens throughout the entire book. The author is such a skilled writer that she easily maintains the readers interest and passes along a lot of interesting information in the process. Her writing style is so smooth that it's an inherently easy book to read. I'm not convinced that it reads like a novel (which another reviewer suggests) but nor is it anything like a textbook. Rather, it's an absorbing and entertaining review of one dimension of the writer's life during a period that she was investigating the Orchid trade. It's an illuminating narrative into an industry that is populated with some fascinating individuals - and the author paints wonderful visual pictures of those individuals. As an aside, it also provides some fascinating insight into the history of Florida, and especially the relationship between the US government and the Native Americans that live there.

I am not someone who regularly reads non-fiction but I enjoyed this book. The description is vivid and takes us on a journey. I found the ending very unsatisfying, but I guess that's real life as opposed to fiction. A neat little book!

Some interesting facts about orchids but little more... I wasn't carried by the tale. Must confess I carried on for more than half but couldn't get myself to finish it

You do not have to love orchids to enjoy this book. INTERESTING.... Loved it.