Susan Orlean

My books

Rin Tin Tin
When I was very young, my grandfather kept a Rin Tin Tin figurine sitting on his desk. I wanted desperately to play with it, and even more desperately I wanted to have a German shepherd dog of my own, a dog just like the star of "The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin", which debuted on television in 1954. I knew nothing about Rin Tin Tin other than that he was the perfect dog, and that he was a character on television. When by chance I learned that Rin Tin Tin was a real dog, not just a television character — a real dog with a real life that was extraordinary — I was drawn into the story and eventually to the idea of writing this book.

Saturday Night
Two decades have passed since I wrote this book, which documents the experience of Saturday night in two dozen communities across the United States. Now, more than 20 years later, I've followed up with the many people and places from the book to see where they are today. This new edition of Saturday Night includes all the text of the original book plus an afterward that reflects on the changes that have come to pass—and also how some things, surprisingly, stay the same.

The Orchid Thief
In 1994, I headed down to Florida to investigate the story of John Laroche, an eccentric plant dealer who had been arrested along with a crew of Seminoles for poaching rare orchids out of the a South Florida swamp. I never imagined that I would end up spending the next two years shadowing Laroche and exploring the odd, passionate world of orchid fanatics.

And lots more on the book page...

Greetings -- and welcome to susanorlean.com. I'm an author, a staff writer for The New Yorker, a dog owner, a gardener, a parent, a frequent lecturer/speaker, an occasional teacher, a very occasional guest editor, a once-in-a-blue-moon movie inspiration, and doodler. I've written a lot of books, which are featured here, and even more magazine articles, some of which I've posted here. There's information about that once-in-a-blue-moon movie, Adaptation; a compendium of news and links about me; and a calendar listing my upcoming readings and appearances and dentist appointments. And I'll be adding more all the time...

News, appearances, and interviews

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Articles I've written

Thinking in the Rain, The New Yorker, February 11 & 18, 2008

The Steve Hollinger experience can be described most simply as multimedia. For one thing, it includes olfactory surprises. My apartment was right above Steve's for several years, and on a regular basis he would call to warn me about odors that might waft their way from the second floor, where he lived, to my apartment on the third. Once in a while, the warning was about something he'd be cooking, but often it was more unexpected ...

The Origami Lab, The New Yorker, February 19, 2007

One of the few Americans to see action during the Bug Wars of the nineteen-nineties was Robert J. Lang, a lanky Californian who was on the front lines throughout, from the battle of the Kabutomushi Beetle to the battle of the Menacing Mantis and the battle of the Long-Legged Wasp. Most combatants in the Bug Wars -- which were, in fact, origami contests -- were members of the Origami Detectives, a group of artists in Japan who liked to try outdoing one another with extreme designs of assigned subjects ...

And many more in the article archive...