Mary Keen
Follow the Testicles
The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession
By Susan Orlean
Heinemann 352pp £12.99
Publishers can't get enough of plants that change men's lives – the tulip, the camellia, the nutmeg, the potato. You can go into any bookshop and find a story about some growing thing that has driven men crazy, or made them rich, or turned out to be a panacea to cure a whole nation. Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief belongs to this new, hybrid genre.
This is a book with several themes: people, places and plants. It is a picaresque tale of John Laroche, alias Mr Encyclopedia or Crazy White Man – 'a late-sleeping, heavy-smoking, junk-food eating, law-bending type', with the posture of al dente spaghetti and a liking for life at the edge of
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Under its longest-serving editor, Graydon Carter, Vanity Fair was that rare thing – a New York society magazine that published serious journalism.
@PeterPeteryork looks at what Carter got right.
Peter York - Deluxe Editions
Peter York: Deluxe Editions - When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon Carter
literaryreview.co.uk
Henry James returned to America in 1904 with three objectives: to see his brother William, to deliver a series of lectures on Balzac, and to gather material for a pair of books about modern America.
Peter Rose follows James out west.
Peter Rose - The Restless Analyst
Peter Rose: The Restless Analyst - Henry James Comes Home: Rediscovering America in the Gilded Age by Peter Brooks...
literaryreview.co.uk
Vladimir Putin served his apprenticeship in the KGB toward the end of the Cold War, a period during which Western societies were infiltrated by so-called 'illegals'.
Piers Brendon examines how the culture of Soviet spycraft shaped his thinking.
Piers Brendon - Tinker, Tailor, Sleeper, Troll
Piers Brendon: Tinker, Tailor, Sleeper, Troll - The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West by Shaun Walker
literaryreview.co.uk