Orlean is best known for The Orchid Thief, which was recast as the movie Adaptation. These essays similarly cast ordinary people in a most extraordinary light, from parents of beauty pageant girls to Cuban farmers. Critics don't call her one of our best essayists for nothing. Orlean approaches her subjects with intense curiosity and fairness, has an unusually good ear for language and dialogue, and arrives at perceptive conclusions about human behavior. Still, My Kind of Place is an uneven colle

More...

I was going to buy this book in SF a few weeks ago, but my cards wouldn't cover it and the author whose picture is on the cover looked like kind of an asshole, so I easily gave that up. But checked it out at the library cause they had it a few weeks ago.

I don't know why this book was in the travel section. Sure, the stories took place in locations all over the country and world (sort of), but the stories had hardly anything to do with the locations. More like events that took place that happene More...

Orleans travel stories don't remind me of typical, heavy New Yorker profiles, which I suppose they aren't. I think the most memorable story was the longer one near the beginning of the collection about a neighborhood grocery store in Queens, NY, if I recall.
One thing I liked is how fearless she was about listing all the wild ethnic foods that different kinds of people would seek in the store.
And, when she tells you the owner likes to listen to Sinatra all day, she then writes five more sentences More...

My Kind of Place has several interesting essays. I particularly like those that focus on a certain location instead of a region. For instance, "All Mixed Up" centers on a grocery store in Queens, New York, rather than Queens itself. Some end too abruptly, I think, but most are informative and fascinating. It would've been helpful for Orlean to have worked the year into each essay--even in a roundabout way--so that the reader would have a clear(er) sense of context. I also think that the "Everywh More...

It's Susan Orlean. Come on.

Read for my Travel Writing class. Some of the pieces were really, really good, but others were kind of stupid and not really travel pieces (like the one about her life as a series of performance pieces--cutesy, not a travel piece). The best ones were, in my opinion, "Where's Willy?", "Royalty", and the one about her climbing Mount Fuji in Japan, which has a very long, very silly name.

The thing that gets me about this book is that you can tell that Susan Orlean has led a fairly privileged life. A More...

I picked this up at the Macomb Friends of the Library book sale last fall because it was a $2 hardback and because the first essay is about something that happened in Springfield, IL (where my sister lives). OH, and because it's by Susan Orlean, one of my all-time favorite writers. But I thought it might be one of those weird publishing company things where, without even really involving the author, they just compiled a bunch of random essays without thoughtfully tying things together (like thos More...

After reading Orlean’s Rin Tin Tin book, I was ready to see how the author approached a “travel book”. My Kind of Place contains several entertaining essays covering everything from a gathering of taxidermists in Springfield, Illinois to the phallic statues and fertility rites that she observed in Bhutan. According to Orlean, Bangkok, Thailand is “a place to disappear”, but first you have to check your email. It’s really a book about people, a lady who collects tigers, a painter that makes the b More...

Heard this as a book on tape. Not so much travel stories as stories about places. Some wonderful sentences in there, but some very long stories that needed serious editing as well. Probably wouldn't have finished the book but it's a long drive home, so I finished the tape.

I was constantly wondering how she managed to report conversations with people when she didn't appear to speak any languages. I will remember some of these places and people, though, and that's the sign of a good book, no? More...

I just love Orlean's voice, and that whole New Yorker style of essay. I agree with many other reviewers that the third section of this book, which consists of snippet-length humor pieces and snapshots, doesn't fit well with the rest of the content -- but it's all tremendously well-done. She is consistently open-minded and interested in everyone, even people like the baby-pageant mommies she talked to in the mid-'90s, and Thomas Kinkade (even though he comes across as nutty and arrogant, as one w More...

Not bad. There were stories that I found interesting, the one about Keiko for example, and others that just seemd like filler i.e the one about Tina Turner.

As others have noted, many of the stories came to an abrupt end, which I found odd given the attention to detail that the author paid throughout the story.

I also think it was a mistake for the author to have read her own book. She is clearly a very talented writer, but narration is not her strong suit and I think it contributed to my low rati More...

Susan Orlean is certainly good at creating a profile piece, and her prose is clean and crisp, but I couldn't help but feel each essay remained on the surface, was if without a thesis or arc, closing abruptly. I'd wonder if a final page was torn away, but then, there are no awful formulaic endings either. Would I have enjoyed them more if I had read them on The New Yorker? There is a different expectation in form between. the pages of a magazine.

While I enjoyed some of the articles, I wasn't really struck by many of this book. And while, I might have enjoyed some as magazine/newspaper pieces, I wasn't sold on the book as a whole. To me, many of the articles ended abruptly, leaving me wondering what was the point? I have liked other similar books: Anna Quindlen's for example, but something here was missing. And superficially, I hated the cover photo of the author.

I have been listening to this book and find it just right. Articulate, thoughtful, insightful and inspiring. It is not an ordinary travel book. Susan Orlean writes about the World championship of taxidermy in Springfield Illinois, and about the music recording industry of Zaire, Congo, Cameroon and an African music epicenter in a tiny shop in Paris. She describes one street in Thailand and the people who live there - not at all just the great place to eat cheap sort of travelogue. She throws in More...

Susan Orleans is my kind of tourist. She goes everywhere in the spirit of Rikki Tikki Tavi, whose motto was, "Go and find out." Orleans shows up at taxidermy conventions, she climbs mountains in Japan and Bhutan, she walks through upper west side playgrounds, attends the Super Bowl and the Olympics, and in each, she captures the telling detail. Great travel writing.

Subtitled Travel Stories from a woman who's been everywhere, by an American journalist, it is a very witty and well written account of the weird and wonderful places she has been and people she has met in her writing career. Most enjoyable!

2009- Contains travel essay on untypical travel spots. I like how the author has a way of writing that makes it feel like you are there, it's like she doesn't get in way of the story. The last third was sort of random, but I totally agree with the baby story.

I really enjoyed these reprints from her magazine essays. mainly the New Yorker. It is a unique look at places near and far: a grocer in Queens, N.Y., climbing Mt. Fuji, Thomas Kinkade art galleries, shooting a gun, etc.

I loved this collection of travel essays. Not only is her writing excellent, but her ability to find totally unexpected subjects and her willingness to dive into any situation created a varied and totally engaging read.

I agree with another reviewer who said that this book was less about travel and more to do with events and people that happen to be in certain locations. The stories were short, ended abruptly, and I didn't connect with the author. The only story I found interesting was the one about baby beauty pageants.

A travel writer who claims no one wants to go to the places she travels to, Susan Orlean has a wonderful eye for the quirky, irreverent, fascinating, previously unknown details that make life interesting. Loved most of the essays, a few didn't thrill me to the bone, but hey, you can't please all of the people all of the time. Will reread this one.

Not as high-yield as The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, but still enough to like. The pieces on the taxidermy convention and the grocery store in Queens were my favorites.

So far, I am really enjoying this book. I love not only her writing style. And she's wickedly funny too.

Like any collection of essays or articles, some were better than others. But overall, I really liked what she chose to observe and research. I laughed and teared up and learned some things. I highly recommend this book.

Non-fiction travel tales mostly. Well written descriptions of places near (a Brooklyn supermarket) and far. Many previously published in the New Yorker.

For travel writing that captures the free-spirit of Frances Mayes but with even more adventure, try My Kind of Place by Susan Orlean.

I tend not to read travel narratives, except the 'Emily Murphy's boat sank, she lost her passport and her shoes' type, because my wanderlust is force to be reckoned with. It's not something I can handle continually stirring if I plan to remain in my normal life. By the end of the first chapted of a Bill Bryson or Pico Iyer book, I'm halfway out the door with a bike lock in one hand and a super-absorbent towel in the other. But while these particular stories were nice to read, they were not reall More...

I loved the idea of this book, that place is a central character in these essays or articles. But some of them fell short, actually, maybe it was more like some of them ran too long.
Some of the stories were great ideas and had great moments, but went on past my interest.
I did love the fresh angles the author used for topics, like hiking Mt. Fuji and the story about the grocery store and the woman who keeps all the tigers.
My favorite part of the book was actually the final third, which were shor More...

These aren't really travel stories, but rather New Yorker-type stories about weird and strange people and events around the world that Orlean attends. Highlights are one about a taxidermy collection (one guy makes a stuffed panda by combining two bears, which are legal to kill, unlike pandas), one about climbing Mt. Fuji, and one about a pageant in the South. Some of the short humor pieces at the end don't quite fit in the book, but they're still pretty amusing. Defintely recommended for anyone More...

Orleans reminds me of a female Bill Bryson in some ways. They simply report on life as they visit wherever, but do it in such an interesting way, you end up with a enjoyable read. I like her writing and enjoyed the audio version which she reads herself.

I love to travel and when I am home bound I can go places with this book!