My Kind of Place

The author's places are as far-flung as Mt. Fuji and as close to home as a supermarket in Queens, as banal as a toddler beauty pageant and as uplifting as the portrait of the student body president at Martin Luther King Jr. High School ("Horror High") in New York. The author says that a journey is one of discovery and that you really don't have to GO anywhere. Nonetheless, you visit Bhutan for a fertility rite and Cuba for a baseball game, but these in the end are human interest stories beautifully read by Karen White and Orlean herself. Though the packaging fails to disclose who is reading what, and the voices are similar, it really doesn't matter because each essay is delivered with enthusiasm, clarity, and empathy. No matter the subject--tigers in New Jersey or the wildly successful franchised artist Thomas Kinkade--you will be entertained, informed, and certain that this is your kind of audio. J.B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

August 16, 2004
Orlean (The Orchid Thief
) hasn't so much been everywhere as she's been everywhere no one else has thought to go. In this collection, she focuses not on cities but on singular locales and events. She zooms in on an African music shop in Paris, a grocery store in Queens and a fertility blessing ceremony in Bhutan. Belying the book's bland title, Orlean's essays are rich in color, metaphor and crafty language. For example, in Iceland, "the wind never huffs or puffs but simply blows your house down." Orlean's subtle humor infuses her writing as she uncovers strange beauties: a taxidermy convention is "a surreal carnality, but all conveyed with the usual trade show earnestness and hucksterism, with no irony and no acknowledgment that having buckets of bear noses for sale was anything out of the ordinary." Orlean uses the word "travel" loosely; "I view all stories as journeys," she explains. Indeed, many of the final pieces aren't grounded by place, but they nicely round out an insightful collection by an exceptional essayist. Agent, Richard Pine
. (On sale Nov. 2)

Forecast:
This is Orlean's first book since the release of
Adaptation (based on
The Orchid Thief), which helped the author gain widespread recognition. Author publicity, a reading tour and print ads could make this a popular holiday pick. Simultaneous audio release.