Recommended reading - Be Cool (1999):

Be Cool

By Elmore Leonard.

Published 1999.

Published by Mariner Books.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0062265997

ISBN-13: 978-0062265999

Description:

“The greatest crime writer of our time, perhaps ever!” – New York Times Book Review.

“An absolute master.” – Detroit News.

Get Shorty's Chili Palmer is back. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

After a smash hit and a flop, B-movie producer Chili Palmer is looking for another score. Lunching with a record company executive, Chili's exploring a hot new idea – until the exec, a former "associate" from Chili's Brooklyn days, gets whacked.

Segue from real life to reel life. Chili's found his plot. It's a slam-bang opener: the rubout of a record company mogul. Cut to an ambitious wannabe singer named Linda Moon. She has attitude and a band. She's perfect. Zoom into reality. Linda's manager thinks Chili's poaching and he's out to get even, with the help of his switch-hitting Samoan bodyguard. But somebody else beat them to the punch, as Chili discovers when he gets home and finds a corpse at his desk. Somebody made a mistake….

Recommended reading - Film Noir Reader (1996):

Film Noir Reader

Edited by Alain Silver and James Ursini.

Published 1996.

Published by Limelight.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0879101970

ISBN-13: 978-0879101978

Description:

This bountiful anthology combines all the key early writings on film noir with many newer essays, including some published here for the first time. The collection is assembled by the editors of the Third Edition of Film Noir: An Enclyclopedic Reference to the American Style, now regarded as the standard work on the subject.

Recommended reading - Raging Bull: My Story (1970):

Raging Bull: My Story

By Jake LaMotta, Peter Savage and Joseph Carter.

Introduction by Nick Tosches.

Filmed as Raging Bull (1980), directed by Martin Scorsese.

First published 1970.

Published by Da Capo Press.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0306808080

ISBN-13: 978-0306808081

Description:

Meet Jake LaMotta: thief, rapist, killer. Raised in the Bronx slums, he fought on the streets, got sent to reform school, and served time in prison. Trusting no one, slugging everyone, he beat his wife, his best friends, even the mobsters who kept the title just out of reach. But the same forces that made him a criminal – fear, rage, jealousy, self-hate, guilt – combined with his drive and intelligence to make him a winner in the ring. At age twenty-seven, after eight years of fighting, he became Middleweight Champion of the World, a hero to thousands. Then, at the peak of success, he fell apart and began a swift, harrowing descent into nightmare. Raging Bull, the Bronx Bull's brutally candid memoir, tells it all – fights, jails, sex, money – surpassing, in hard-hitting prose, even the movie that immortalized it.

Recommended reading - A Clockwork Orange (1962):

A Clockwork Orange

By Anthony Burgess.

Filmed in 1971 by Stanley Kubrick.

First published 1962.

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0393341763

ISBN-13: 978-0393341768

Description:

One of Esquire's 50 Best Sci-Fi Books of All Time.

“A brilliant novel.… [A] savage satire on the distortions of the single and collective minds.” – New York Times.

In Anthony Burgess’s influential nightmare vision of the future, where the criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, a teen who talks in a fantastically inventive slang that evocatively renders his and his friends’ intense reaction against their society. Dazzling and transgressive, A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil and the meaning of human freedom. This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition, and Burgess’s introduction, “A Clockwork Orange Resucked.”

Recommended reading - The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844):

The Luck of Barry Lyndon

By William Makepeace Thackeray.

Filmed as Barry Lyndon (1975), directed and written by Stanley Kubrick.

First published 1844.

Published by East India Publishing Company.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1778940242

ISBN-13: 978-1778940248

Description:

Step into the world of 18th-century Europe with "The Luck of Barry Lyndon" by acclaimed author William Makepeace Thackeray. This captivating novel offers a mesmerizing glimpse into the life of its eponymous protagonist, Barry Lyndon, as he navigates the precarious paths of ambition, love, and fortune.

Thackeray's exquisite storytelling paints a vivid portrait of a charismatic and cunning protagonist, whose relentless pursuit of wealth and status takes him from the Irish countryside to the glittering courts of Europe. Through Barry's adventures, readers are immersed in a world of decadence, intrigue, and social climbing, where each twist of fate presents new opportunities and perilous challenges.

"The Luck of Barry Lyndon" is not merely a tale of personal ambition, but also a scathing social commentary on the moral bankruptcy and vanity of the aristocracy. Thackeray's sharp wit and incisive observations cut through the veneer of high society, exposing the hypocrisy and pitfalls that lie beneath.

With its rich historical backdrop and compelling characters, this novel stands as a testament to Thackeray's masterful storytelling. "The Luck of Barry Lyndon" is a timeless classic that continues to captivate readers, inviting them to reflect on the elusive nature of fortune and the consequences of relentless ambition.

Prepare to be enthralled by Thackeray's intricate narrative, as he weaves a tale of passion, deceit, and unexpected turns of fate. This extraordinary novel promises an unforgettable journey into a world where luck can both make and break a man.

Recommended reading - The Stand (1978):

The Stand

By Stephen King.

First published 1978.

Published by Doubleday.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 0385199570

ISBN-13: 978-0385199575

Description:

Stephen King’s apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting – and eerily plausible – as when it was first published.

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years! This edition includes all of the new and restored material first published in The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition.

A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world’s population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge – Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them – and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.

Recommended reading: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968):

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

By Philip K. Dick.

Filmed as Blade Runner (1982), directed by Ridley Scott.

ASIN: 0586036059

Published by Voyager.

First published 1968.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0006482805

ISBN-13: 978-0586036051

Description:

21st Century Bounty Hunter.

Through the mean streets of a grim 21st century megalopolis, bounty hunter Rick Deckard stalked, searching out the renegade replicants who were his prey. But this assignment involved Nexus-6 targets and as a result Deckard quickly found himself involved in a nightmare kaleidoscope of violence and subterfuge – and the threat of death for the hunter rather than the hunted…

“A marvelous and complex book, simply written but leaving all kinds of resonance in the mind.” – Brian W. Aldiss.

Recommended reading - Gone with the Wind (1936):

Gone with the Wind

By Margaret Mitchell.

First published 1936.
Published by Scribner
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 1451635621
ISBN-13: 978-1451635621

Description:

Since its original publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind – winner of the Pulitzer Prize and one of the bestselling novels of all time – has been heralded by readers everywhere as The Great American Novel.

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

This is the tale of Scarlett O’Hara, the spoiled, manipulative daughter of a wealthy plantation owner, who arrives at young womanhood just in time to see the Civil War forever change her way of life. A sweeping story of tangled passion and courage, in the pages of Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell brings to life the unforgettable characters that have captivated readers for decades.

Widely considered an American classic, and often remembered for its epic film version, Gone With the Wind explores the depth of human passions with an intensity as bold as its setting in the red hills of Georgia. A superb piece of storytelling, it vividly depicts the drama of the Civil War and Reconstruction.

“Beyond a doubt one of the most remarkable first novels produced by an American writer. It is also one of the best.” – The New York Times.

“The best novel to have ever come out of the South...it is unsurpassed in the whole of American writing.” – The Washington Post.

“Fascinating and unforgettable! A remarkable book, a spectacular book, a book that will not be forgotten!” – Chicago Tribune.

Recommended reading - The Sixteenth Round (1974) & Lazarus and the Hurricane (1991):

The Sixteenth Round & Lazarus and the Hurricane

Both books filmed as The Hurricane (1999), directed by Norman Jewison.

The Sixteenth Round

From Number 1 Contender to Number 45472

By Rubin “Hurricane” Carter.

First published 1974.

Published by Chicago Review Press.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1569765677

ISBN-13: 978-1569765678

Description:

A document of life lived in the center of hell. – Sports Illustrated.

When they come to list the greatest boxers, Hurrican's name isn't likely to pop up in the Top 10. But when they come to list the greatest figures of the 20th century, he'll be alone at the peak. – Boston Globe.

A shocking, savage and brilliant indictment of racial injustice and the inhumanity of the prison. – Globe and Mail.

Carter's scorching and poetic autobiography. – Toronto Sun.

Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was riding a wave of success. The survivor of a difficult youth, he rose to become a top contender for the middleweight boxing crown. But his career crashed to a halt on May 26, 1967, when he and another man were found guilty of the murder of three white people and sentenced to three consecutive life terms. Written from prison and first published in 1974, The Sixteenth Round chronicles Hurricane's journey from the ring to solitary confinement. The book was his cry for help to the public, an attempt to set the record straight and force a new trial. Bob Dylan wrote his classic anthem "Hurricane" about his struggle, and Muhammad Ali and thousands of others took up his cause. The power of Carter's voice, as well as his ironic humor, makes this an eloquent, soul-stirring account of a remarkable life.

Lazarus and the Hurricane

The Freeing of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

By Sam Chaiton and Terry Swinton.

First published 1991.

Published by St. Martin's Griffin.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0312253974

ISBN-13: 978-0312253974

Description:

A moving chronicle of the seven-year-battle to free boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter from wrongful imprisonment reveals the role of a group of Canadians in winning Carter's release.

Recommended reading - A Beautiful Mind (1998):

A Beautiful Mind

By Sylvia Nasar.

First published 1998.

Published by Simon & Schuster.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1451628420

ISBN-13: 978-1451628425

Description:

Also an Academy Award–winning film starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly – directed by Ron Howard.

The powerful, dramatic biography of math genius John Nash, who overcame serious mental illness and schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize.

“How could you, a mathematician, believe that extraterrestrials were sending you messages?” the visitor from Harvard asked the West Virginian with the movie-star looks and Olympian manner. “Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way my mathematical ideas did,” came the answer. “So I took them seriously.”

Thus begins the true story of John Nash, the mathematical genius who was a legend by age thirty when he slipped into madness, and who—thanks to the selflessness of a beautiful woman and the loyalty of the mathematics community—emerged after decades of ghostlike existence to win a Nobel Prize for triggering the game theory revolution. The inspiration for an Academy Award–winning movie, Sylvia Nasar’s now-classic biography is a drama about the mystery of the human mind, triumph over adversity, and the healing power of love.

Recommended reading - The Getaway (1958):

The Getaway

By Jim Thompson.

First published 1958.

Published by Mulholland Books.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0316403970

ISBN-13: 978-0316403979

Description:

Doc McCoy is the most skilled criminal alive. But when for the first time in Doc's long criminal career, his shot doesn't hit the mark, everything begins to fall apart. And Doc begins to realize that the perfect bank robbery isn't complete without the perfect getaway to back it up.

THE GETAWAY is the classic story of a bank robbery gone horribly wrong, where the smallest mistakes have catastrophic consequences, and shifting loyalties lead to betrayals and chaos. The basis for the classic Steve McQueen film of the same name, as well as a 1994 remake with Alec Baldwin, Thompson's novel set the bar for every heist story that followed - but as Thompson's proved time and again, nobody's ever done it better than the master.

Recommended reading - The Last Detail (1970):

The Last Detail

By Darryl Ponicsan.

First published 1970.

Published by Skyhorse.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1510727752

ISBN-13: 978-1510727755

Description:

The Acclaimed Novel That Was the Basis for the Classic Movie Starring Jack Nicholson.

Unlike the other branches of the armed services, the navy draws its police force from the ranks, as temporary duty. The risk is that men on Shore Patrol might bring their humanity to the task. This accounts for the underlying tension in "The Last Detail", which takes place during the height of the Vietnam War. Billy Bad-Ass and Mule Mulhall, two career sailors in transit in Norfolk, awaiting permanent orders, are given a "chaser" duty. Their assignment is to escort and deliver Larry Meadows, an 18-year-old sailor, from Norfolk to Portsmouth, N.H., where he is to serve an eight-year sentence in the brig. It's good duty, on the face of it, until the two old salts realize the injustice of the sentence and are oddly affected by the true innocence of their prisoner, even though he is guilty as charged. Failure, or refusal, to carry out their duty is never a question, no matter how much they hate the detail or how wrong it seems, and yet something must be done, some gesture made in order to help their hapless prisoner survive the long ordeal he faces, and to purge their own sense of shame. "The Last Detail" was Darryl Ponicsan's first book and it catapulted him into the front rank of American novelists. It was made into the 1973 film starring Jack Nicholson, and has become a classic of the Golden Age of American cinema. This new edition of "The Last Detail" coincides with the publication of its long-awaited sequel, "Last Flag Flying", also available from The Wright Press.

Recommended reading - Mad with Much Heart (1945):

Mad with Much Heart

By Gerald Butler.

First published 1945.
ASIN: B0006AQZEY
Published by: Rinehart & company, inc.
Hardcover.

Description:

Filmed as On Dangerous Ground (1951), directed by Nicholas Ray and Ida Lupino.

Recommended reading - Speedbumps: Flooring it Through Hollywood (2005):

Speedbumps: Flooring it Through Hollywood

By Teri Garr, with Henriette Mantel.

Published 2005.
Published by Hudson Street Press.
Hardcover.
ISBN-10: 1594630070
ISBN-13: 978-1594630071

Description:

In her laugh-out-loud funny and inspiring autobiography, Teri Garr, one of Hollywood’s best-loved comediennes, muses about movies, men, motherhood, and MS.

From the directors she’s worked with and admired to the men she’s loved; from sipping cokes with Elvis Presley on Good Friday to hangin’ with the Beatles; from her secrets to succeeding in Hollywood without losing her sanity, to dealing with the fear, anxiety, and denial of being plagues by mysterious physical problems that eluded diagnosis for over twenty years – the insights in Speedbumps, while always couched in Garr’s trademark humor, are honest, heartfelt, and often profound.

Since she was eight years old, little Terry Ann Garr was a natural performer, staging elaborate productions for the neighborhood in her family’s garage, captivating her teachers, and easing the tensions between her alcoholic, gambling vaudevillian father and her hard-working Rockette mother with her natural charm and wit. By the age of thirteen – two years after her father’s premature death catalyzed her to “get serious” about becoming a dancer – she was touring with a San Franscisco ballet company; at seventeen, she was swiveling her hips alongside Elvis and Ann-Margret in Viva Las Vegas.

By the time she was thirty, Teri had become known as one of Hollywood's best-loved comic actresses, starring in such classic films as Young Frankenstein; Oh, God!; Close Encounters of the Third Kind; and Mr. Mom; and receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance alongside Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.

In October 2002, Teri announced on national television that she had multiple sclerosis, making headlines across the country. Since then, she has become a leading advocate in raising awareness for MS and the latest treatments for the disease, traveling around the United States speaking to corporations, physicians, and patients about her experience.

Now, in a book that is at once Hollywood hilarious and personally moving, Teri writes about her life – speedbumps and all – with the same characteristic wit and warmth that have won the hearts of fans and Hollywood for more than three decades.

----------

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Recommended reading - The Film Noir Encyclopedia (2010):

The Film Noir Encyclopedia

Edited by Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward, James Ursini, Robert Porfirio.

Published by Harry N. Abrams.

Published 2010.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 1590201442

ISBN-13: 978-1590201442

Description:

Meet the cynical and obsessive heroes of film noir portrayed by actors like Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, James Cagney, Joan Crawford, and Bette Davis. You may encounter a gun-toting gangster, a femme fatale wrapped in fur, a detective with the brim of his hat turned down, or a desperate murderer lurking in the shadows of a doorway. It's a world we all know – the seedy underbelly of the American Dream, and every bit as much a part of our culture. This wonderfully exhaustive text – tallying more than three hundred thousand words with hundreds of film stills and photos new to the work – distills everything about the movement into one volume from movies to stars to themes and motifs and brings us up to date with contemporary contributions to the movement. Now completely revised, expanded, and redesigned, this classic pioneering work is the final word on a dark subject.

Recommended reading - 300:

300

By Frank Miller and Lynn Varley.

Published 1999.

Published by Dark Horse Books.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 1569714029

ISBN-13: 978-1569714027

Description:

The armies of Persia – a vast horde greater than any the world has ever known – are poised to crush Greece, an island of reason and freedom in a sea of madness and tyranny. Standing between Greece and this tidal wave of destruction are a tiny detachment of but three hundred warriors. Frank Miller's epic retelling of history's supreme moment of battlefield valor is finally collected in its intended format – each two-page spread from the original comics is presented as a single undivided page.

Recommended reading - Christine (1983):

Christine

By Stephen King.

Published by Viking Press.

First published 1983.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 0670220264

ISBN-13: 978-0670220267

Description:

It was love at first sight. From the moment seventeen-year-old Arnie Cunningham saw Christine, he knew he would do anything to possess her.

Arnie’s best friend, Dennis, distrusts her – immediately.

Arnie’s teen-queen girlfriend, Leigh, fears her the moment she senses her power.

Arnie’s parents, teachers, and enemies soon learn what happens when you cross her.

Because Christine is no lady. She is Stephen King’s ultimate, blackly evil vehicle of terror…

Christine, blood-red, fat and finned, was twenty. Her promise lay all in her past. Greedy and big, she was Arnie’s obsession, a ’58 Plymouth Fury. Broken down but not finished. There was still power in her – a frightening power that leaked like sump oil, staining and corrupting. A malign power that corroded the mind and turned ownership into Possession.

Recommended reading - Big Stick-Up at Brinks (1976):

Big Stick-Up at Brinks

By Noel Behn.

First published 1976.

Published by Putnam.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 0399118977

ISBN-13: 978-0399118975

Description:

A riveting and frequently hilarious insider account of one of the twentieth century’s most outrageous capers.

On the evening of January 17, 1950, armed robbers wearing Captain Marvel masks entered the Brink’s Armored Car building in Boston, Massachusetts. They walked out less than an hour later with more than $2.7 million in cash and securities. It was a brazen and expertly executed theft that captured the imaginations of millions of Americans and baffled the FBI and local law enforcement officials.

But what appeared on the surface to be the perfect crime was, in fact, the end result of a mind-boggling series of mistakes, miscalculations, and missteps. The men behind the masks were not expert bank robbers but a motley crew of small-time crooks who bumbled their way into a record-breaking payday and managed to elude the long arm of the law for six years.

New York Times bestselling author Noel Behn tape-recorded nearly one thousand hours of interviews with the surviving robbers, including motormouthed mastermind Tony Pino, a character so colorful he might have been dreamed up by a Hollywood screenwriter, to tell the uncensored story of the heist forever known as “the Great Brink’s Robbery.” Fun and suspenseful from first page to last, Behn’s true-crime classic was the basis for The Brink’s Job (1978), the Academy Award–nominated film directed by William Friedkin and starring Peter Falk and Peter Boyle.

“It had me riveted with suspense, but it also made me laugh until I got hiccups.” – Cosmopolitan.

“A King Kong of crime entertainment . . . that no movie could match . . . The Brink’s job [was] a kind of D-Day event in the annals of crime . . . Glorious.” – Kirkus Reviews.

“One minute you’re laughing your head off. The next minute you chill with fear. Crooks and crime at their best. Pure magic!” – Harold Robbins.

“The best book about criminals ever written, a rich and beautiful depiction of their lives as well as their work, a book that elevates them from moving-picture types to complete, vivid humans. Noel Behn has taken one of the most extraordinary crimes of the century and turned it into a living tapestry. It’s a wonderful book.” – Paddy Chayefsky, Academy Award–winning screenwriter of Network.

“Reads like a Hollywood screenplay, except that it really happened.” – John Barkham Reviews.

Recommended reading - Alice Guy Blache: Lost Visionary of the Cinema (2002):

Alice Guy Blache: Lost Visionary of the Cinema

by Alison McMahan.

Filmed as Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché (2018), documentary directed by Pamela B. Green.

Published by Continuum Intl Pub Group.

Published 2002.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 0826451586

ISBN-13: 978-0826451583

Description:

The time has arrived, so it would seem, when woman must take her place beside man in the majority of arts and professions in the business world. In women of the caliber of Madame Alice Blaché it has also been demonstrated that there is a possibility of their doing so without being shorn of that most desirable of womanly qualities, femininity. – The Moving Picture News, 1912.

It has long been a source of wonder to me that many women have not seized upon the wonderful opportunities offered to them by the motion-picture art to make their way to fame and fortune as producers of photodramas. Of all the arts there is probably none in which they can make such a splendid use of talents so much more natural to a woman than to a man and so necessary to its perfection. – Alice Guy Blaché, 1914.

Over a hundred years after she started making films (which was considerably earlier than D.W. Griffith, Mabel Normand, and Lillian Gish began their careers), the life and work of Alice Guy Blaché is still shrouded in myth and controversy.

Only a fraction (111) of the approximately one thousand films that she directed still exist, and almost half of these have been found very recently. The films are spread out in archives all over the world. Not all of them are available for viewing, even to scholars, and many of them are in desperate need of conservation and preservation.

It is widely agreed that she was the first woman filmmaker but there is considerable debate as to whether she made the first ever fiction film. She played a key role in early sound film production, and yet this part of her career is almost always ignored. She is, to this day, the only woman ever to have owned and run her own film studio. And yet she made her final film in 1920, at the age of 47, and died in New Jersey in 1968, unacknowledged, unheralded, almost totally forgotten.

Ten years of painstaking research has enabled Alison McMahan to piece together the career of this extraordinary woman. What results is the first full-length treatment of Alice Guy Blaché’s work, the debunking of several long-standing myths about her and, ultimately, the emergence of a feminist figurehead of the filmmaking industry.

"McMahan s book is an obsessively detailed history of a true motion-picture pioneer." – American Cinematographer, July 2002.

"The author provides intriguing information about Guy s life, the early days of film production, and Guy s independent film company (Solax)." – Choice, November 2002.

"A fascinating book that will interest scholars and general readers alike." – Richard Abel, Drake University.

"Monumental...a daunting achievement." – Los Angeles Times, August 15, 2002.

Recommended reading - The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession (1998):

The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession

By Susan Orlean.

Filmed as Adaptation (2002), directed by Spike Jonze.

First published 1998.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 044900371X

ISBN-13: 978-0449003718

Description:

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.

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.