Susan Orlean

While walking to school, lugging a heavy backpack through New York City one morning, a disgruntled child questions why babies are so lazy, spending their days on useless activities such as napping and babbling rather than getting jobs.

"In My Kind of Place, Susan Orlean takes readers on a series of remarkable journeys in a uniquely witty and sophisticated travel book. In this collection of adventures far and near, Orlean conducts a tour of the world via its subcultures, from the heart of the African music scene in Paris to the World Taxidermy Championships in Springfield, Illinois - and even into her own apartment, where she imagines a very famous houseguest taking advantage of her hospitality."--BOOK JACKET.

This was no ordinary Saturday night. Five girls. They couldn't have been more different, but they shared a common dream -- a perfect Saturday night at the Autumn Leaves Dance. For each of them, the night meant something different: It was a chance to be beautiful -- or dangerous; it was a time to reveal a secret, to even a score, or to fall in love. Of course their paths crossed. And for some, their dreams came true. But none of them could have guessed the surprises the night would hold -- surprises that would change their lives. Because for Beth, Anne, Molly, Emily, and Kip, nothing would be the same after Saturday night.

The orchid thief in Susan Orlean's 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 American activists, and devoted orchid collectors. The result is a tale that is strange, compelling, and hilarious.

Using the lyrics to Tom Chapin and Michael Mark's "The Library Song," this picture book celebrates the magic of reading and of libraries.

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. It spans ninety years and explores everything from the shift in status of dogs from working farmhands to beloved family members, from the birth of obedience training to the evolution of dog breeding, from the rise of Hollywood to the past and present of dogs in war.--From publisher description.