New York Times bestselling author and globetrotting reporter Susan Orlean has been called “a national treasure” by the Washington Post and “a latter-day Tocqueville” by the New York Times. Her deeply moving explorations of American stories both familiar and obscure have earned her a reputation as one of America’s most distinctive journalistic voices. In her new memoir, Joyride, Orlean writes “the story of my life is the story of my stories,” creating era-defining memoir from one of the greatest practitioners of narrative nonfiction of our time. A staff writer for The New Yorker for over 30 years and a former contributing editor at Rolling Stone and Vogue, The New York Times raves, “There appears to be nothing in the world that doesn’t interest Orlean, and she has such a companionable way of conveying her fascinations that readers can’t help being fascinated too.” Her profiles and interviews for The New Yorker have covered such wide-ranging subjects as Jean Paul Gaultier’s design inspiration, urban chicken farming, the friends and neighbors of Tonya Harding, the contemporary painter responsible for capturing “the art in the Wonder Bread,” and the World Taxidermy Championships. In The Orchid Thief—her breakout national bestseller that inspired the Academy Award-winning film Adaptation—Orlean delves into the life of John Laroche, a charismatic schemer once convicted of trying to steal endangered orchids from a state preserve in southern Florida. Orlean’s instant New York Times bestseller, The Library Book, is an exploration of the history, power, and future of these endangered institutions, told through the lens of Orlean’s quest to solve a notorious cold case. It was awarded the California Book Award and Marfield Prize for Arts Writing.
