The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2025: A Collection of the Year's Most Insightful Essays on the Natural World, Climate Change, and the Wonders of Science Curated by Susan Orlean

Literature & Fiction

Orlean, Susan

Green, Jaime

Essays & Correspondence

Mariner Books

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. 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-will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion. Praise for The Orchid Thief: "Fascinating . . . tales of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing . . . an engrossing journey." "-Los Angeles Times" "Irresistible . . . a brilliantly reported account of an illicit scheme to housebreak Florida's wild and endangered ghost orchid . . . Its central figure is John Laroche, the 'oddball ultimate' of a subculture whose members are so enthralled by orchids they 'pursue them like lovers.' " "-Minneapolis Star Tribune" "Artful . . . in Ms. Orlean's skillful handling, her orchid story turns out to be distinctly 'something more.' . . . [Her] portrait of her sometimes sad-making orchid thief allows the reader to discover acres of opportunity where intriguing things can be found." "-The New York Times" "Zestful . . . a swashbuckling piece of reporting that celebrates some virtues that made America great." "-The Wall Street Journal" "Deliciously weird . . . compelling." "-Detroit Free Press"

The Orchid Thief : A True Story of Beauty and Obsession

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Gardening & Landscape Design

Vintage

The bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book is back with this delightfully entertaining collection of her best and brightest profiles. Acclaimed New Yorker writer Susan Orlean brings her wry sensibility, exuberant voice, and peculiar curiosities to a fascinating range of subjects—from the well known (Bill Blass) to the unknown (a typical ten-year-old boy) to the formerly known (the 1960s girl group the Shaggs). Passionate people. Famous people. Short people. And one championship show dog named Biff, who from a certain angle looks a lot like Bill Clinton. Orlean transports us into the lives of eccentric and extraordinary characters—like Cristina Sánchez, the eponymous bullfighter, the first female matador of Spain—and writes with such insight and candor that readers will feel as if they’ve met each and every one of them. The result is a luminous and joyful tour of the human condition as seen through the eyes of the writer heralded by the Chicago Tribune as a “journalist dynamo.”

The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup: My Encounters with Extraordinary People

History

Random House Publishing Group

A close-up look at what Americans do on Saturday nights draws on travels through-out the country to describe classic weekend situations, types of people, places and communities, entertainment patterns, and other topics

Saturday Night

Historical Study & Educational Resources

KNOPF

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 Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Ballantine Books

A close-up look at what Americans do on Saturday nights draws on travels throughout the country to describe classic weekend situations, types of people, places and communities, entertainment patterns, and other topics

Fawcett

In Susan Orlean's mesmerizing true story of beauty and obsession is John Laroche, a renegade plant dealer and sharply handsome guy, in spite of the fact that he is missing his front teeth and has the posture of al dente spaghetti. In 1994, Laroche and three Seminole Indians were arrested with rare orchids they had stolen from a wild swamp in south Florida that is filled with some of the world's most extraordinary plants and trees. Laroche had planned to clone the orchids and then sell them for a small fortune to impassioned collectors. After he was caught in the act, Laroche set off one of the oddest legal controversies in recent memory, which brought together environmentalists, Native Amer-ican activists, and devoted orchid collectors. The result is a tale that is strange, compelling, and hilarious. New Yorker writer Susan Orlean followed Laroche through swamps and into the eccentric world of Florida's orchid collectors, a subculture of aristocrats, fanatics, and smugglers whose obsession with plants is all-consuming. Along the way, Orlean learned the history of orchid collecting, discovered an odd pattern of plant crimes in Florida, and spent time with Laroche's partners, a tribe of Seminole Indians who are still at war with the United States. There is something fascinating or funny or truly bizarre on every page of The Orchid Thief: the story of how the head of a famous Seminole chief came to be displayed in the front window of a local pharmacy; or how seven hundred iguanas were smuggled into Florida; or the case of the only known extraterrestrial plant crime. Ultimately, however, Susan Orlean's book is about passion itself, and the amazing lengths to which people will go to gratify it. That passion is captured with singular vision in The Orchid Thief, a once-in-a-lifetime story by one of our most original journalists. From the Hardcover edition.

The Orchid Thief

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Random House Audio |

Provides a humorous view of aspects of New England life such as baked beans, candlepins, Filene's Basement, preppies, and Harvard Square

Red Sox and Bluefish: And Other Things That Make New England New England

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Faber&Faber

The Best American series has been the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction since 1915. Each volume's series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the very best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected--and most popular--of its kind. The Best American Essays 2005 includes Roger Angell • Andrea Barrett • Jonathan Franzen • Ian Frazier • Edward Hoagland • Ted Kooser • Jonathan Lethem • Danielle Ofri • Oliver Sacks • Cathleen Schine • David Sedaris • Robert Stone • David Foster Wallace • and others Susan Orlean, guest editor, is the author of My Kind of Place, The Orchid Thief, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, and Saturday Night. A staff writer for The New Yorker since 1982, she has also written for Outside, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Vogue.

The Best American Essays 2005 (The Best American Series)

Comics & Graphic Novels

Atwan,Robert

Manga

“Travel is not about finding something. It’s about getting lost -- that is, it is about losing yourself in a place and a moment. The little things that tether you to what’s familiar are gone, and you become a conduit through which the sensation of the place is felt.” -- from the introduction by Susan Orlean The twenty pieces in this year’s collection showcase the best travel writing from 2006. George Saunders travels to India to witness firsthand a fifteen-year-old boy who has been meditating motionless under a tree for months without food or water, and who many followers believe is the reincarnation of the Buddha. Matthew Power reveals trickle-down economics at work in a Philippine garbage dump. Jason Anthony describes the challenges of everyday life in Vostok, the coldest place on earth, where temperatures dip as low as minus-129 degrees and where, in midsummer, minus-20 degrees is considered a heat wave. David Halberstam, in one of his last published essays, recalls how an inauspicious Saigon restaurant changed the way he and other reporters in Vietnam saw the world. Ian Frazier analyzes why we get sick when traveling in out-of-the-way places. And Kevin Fedarko embarks on a drug-fueled journey in Djibouti, chewing psychotropic foliage in “the worst place on earth.” Closer to home, Steve Friedman profiles a 410-pound man who set out to walk cross-country to lose weight and find happiness. Rick Bass chases the elusive concept of the West in America, and Jonathan Stern takes a hilarious Lonely Planet approach to his small Manhattan apartment.

The Best American Travel Writing 2007

Wilson, Jason

United States

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Books by Orlean, Susan