The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession
Jul 2011 · Sold by Ballantine Books
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • THE BASIS FOR THE FILM ADAPTATION DIRECTED BY SPIKE JONZE AND STARRING NICOLAS CAGE AND MERYL STREEP
The “eccentric, illuminating, [and] hilarious” (New York Daily News) true story of beauty and obsession in the swamps of Florida and the impassioned individuals who risk everything for the ultimate prize: a rare ghost orchid
“Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing.”—Los Angeles Times
Meet John Laroche, a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive renegade plant dealer. In 1994, Laroche and three Seminole men were arrested with rare ghost orchids—Polyrrhiza lindenii—they had stolen from a wild swamp in South Florida. Laroche had planned to clone the endangered orchids and sell them for a small fortune to impassioned buyers.
In The Orchid Thief, acclaimed journalist Susan Orlean follows 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. This unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture becomes even more bizarre as Orlean details how the head of a famous Seminole chief came to be displayed in the front window of a local pharmacy, how seven hundred iguanas were smuggled into Florida, and the case of the only known extraterrestrial plant crime.
A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is a wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession.
The “eccentric, illuminating, [and] hilarious” (New York Daily News) true story of beauty and obsession in the swamps of Florida and the impassioned individuals who risk everything for the ultimate prize: a rare ghost orchid
“Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing.”—Los Angeles Times
Meet John Laroche, a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive renegade plant dealer. In 1994, Laroche and three Seminole men were arrested with rare ghost orchids—Polyrrhiza lindenii—they had stolen from a wild swamp in South Florida. Laroche had planned to clone the endangered orchids and sell them for a small fortune to impassioned buyers.
In The Orchid Thief, acclaimed journalist Susan Orlean follows 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. This unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture becomes even more bizarre as Orlean details how the head of a famous Seminole chief came to be displayed in the front window of a local pharmacy, how seven hundred iguanas were smuggled into Florida, and the case of the only known extraterrestrial plant crime.
A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is a wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • THE BASIS FOR THE FILM ADAPTATION DIRECTED BY SPIKE JONZE AND STARRING NICOLAS CAGE AND MERYL STREEP
The “eccentric, illuminating, [and] hilarious” (New York Daily News) true story of beauty and obsession in the swamps of Florida and th...
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Ratings and reviews
3 reviews
Carol Fraley
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January 30, 2026
This book rambled on and on and on.
Carly Jo Trivitt
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March 29, 2017
Amazing!
About the author
Susan Orlean has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992 and has also written for Outside, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Vogue. She graduated from the University of Michigan and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She now lives in Los Angeles and upstate New York with her husband and son.
Susan Orlean has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1992 and has also written for Outside, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Vogue. She graduated from the University of Michigan and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She now lives in Los Angeles and upstate New York with her husband a...
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