My literary introduction into turn-of-the-century New Orleans, specifically Storyville, was a novel by Frank Yerby entitled "The Girl from Storyville; A Victorian Novel". On the cover of that particular edition is an artists rendering of one of Bellocq's Storyville photographs. The images of that book have remained vivid in my mind for more than 20 years, and when I saw the photos in this book, I was once again taken back to a life and time so long ago, and yet so real. The stark, poorly lit images extoll the gritty, decidedly non-aesthetic world in which these women lived. It is, at times, disconcerting to view the gay smiles on their faces, knowing , or at least supposing, their misery. The history of that place and time will continue to fascinate me as will the very real record preserved for us by E.J. Bellocq.

One of the most extraordinary collections of photographs ever published. I suppose I still prefer the original 'Storyville Portraits', but it's certainly good to have so many extra photos, hitherto unpublished. It's so difficult to describe the unique qualities of these strange, compelling images. They seem suffused with pathos, sometimes simultaneously grotesque and romantic. I love the photo of the naked girl scratching a butterfly into wall-plaster. She seems almost to be a pinned-up specimin herself, flattened across the space of the wall. But the lighting - here and in all of the images - so lovingly sculpts the figure that all feelings of exploitation vanish.

Susan Sontag's introduction is a big disappointment. She seems to have little to say and shows very little real feeling for the photographs. For much more sensitive insights you need to find the original introduction - consigned to the back of this edition - or read Michael Ondaatje's 'Coming Through Slaughter' and Brooke Bergen's 'Storyville: A Hidden Mirror'.

A lovely book, and one you might appreciate if you: a) Enjoy beautiful photography, b) Find prostitutes romantic, c) Are excited by plump women, or d) Are interested in offbeat and surreal images. Many of Bellocq's photographs are truly odd. For example, the one of a woman whose face is bizarrely hidden behind a too-large Zorro mask, slumped awkwardly in a wooden chair. Or the one of a woman wearing only a sly smile and high heeled shoes, her elbow propped uncomfortably on a window sill, armpit cheerfully thrust outward. Or the one of a woman in a weird full body stocking. Some of the pictures are weirder still for having the faces of the subjects crudely blacked out, or for being blotted with corrosion and cracks. Of course, these were not due to Bellocq, but they do contribute to the surreal, almost Joel-Peter Witkenesque look of his photographs. Wonderful all the same.

I have never been a huge fan of "romance" novels, as I often found them to be predictable, shallow, and rather insulting to my intelligence. When I was first asked to read Laffite's Lady, I was doubtful that I could possibly enjoy a story connected to the romance genre. However, after reading the book, I found it to be much more than a "bodice-ripper". The story is full of rich detail and descriptions that play to all five senses. Especially, those tied directly to the time and setting of the novel. I found the fictional characters to be as dimensional as those historical characters who are cleverly woven into the story. The love story was real and heartfelt, so much so that on a recent trip to New Orleans with my husband, we visited Laffite's Blacksmith Shop, a site from the book. There we found a truly amazing fact directly from the pages of the book. I won't give it away, but I will tell you that it made the book more than just a "romance" novel or "history" text. Mz. Elliston has managed to take history and fiction and blur the lines beautifully and magically. And, even though the editing was not at it's best (I'm a former English major, so it didn't go unnoticed) the story itself takes center stage over minor details of grammar and punctuation. A small price to pay for such a brillant novel. Please keep writing, Mz. Elliston. You are a timeless storyteller.

As a historian I read books that basically follow a time line of events as they happen. Somehow these people in history seem very distant. To see a hisorical character as a real person capable of feeling love, hate, depression, and all of the other emotions we all feel on a day to day basis helps us to understand why they did what they did. As a reenactor I love to replay the drama of these dramatic events that shaped our lives. No one has done a better job at reliving history than Mrs. Elliston in Laffite's Lady. Right now part of her book is being written into a song.

Never wrote a review before, but this book deserves a great one. A friend of mine recommended the book and when she told me about it I thought it would be another "made for women" love story. As friends usually do, she insisted and I ordered the book. Determined not to read it I put it aside until my friend called and started asking questions about it. Ergo, I had NO choice. Anyway, the bottom line is that I read the book in two days because I could NOT put it down, period! What a fantastically written adventure and great education about the time in which it happened. The characters are full of life and the story draws you in from beginning to end. This is a book to be read by anybody who likes adventures, history, pirates, lovestories and timetravel. As a guy I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and look forward reading more from Susan Elliston, and thanks to my friend Jane for recommending it to me. Five Stars no doubt!

Many may argue that the title of this review is nonsensical-I agree. It was a ruse. I found this book to be, most simply, erudite. This is a wonderful case where the book is merely a vehicle of message. I was not particularly attached to any of the characters and I was not meant to be attached. No character is ever truly developed and they, in effect, act as mirrors of the personality of Amory Blaine. Its just him from different directions. Even with them surrounding him-hes still not quite lovable as a character(However, I thought the concept of Amory was great).Noting this, I found the book insightful. Fitzgerald certainly had alot to say about the generation in question. He emphasized their feelings of disenchantment and emphasized this by the seemingly stale characters of the novel. He may have coined one of the best phrases that I have seen in such a novel-"I know myself, but that is all I know". Its a line I'll have to remember. Its a good read, sophisticated, and worth it for it's ambitions.

I love this book so much, it kills me. I love Amory Blaine, with all his flaws and imperfections, that it seems I'll never find a man in the world, because this creation, of this man, was somehow a fiat from God. Usually after reading something that means very much to me, I get this strange sad feeling - After reading some of Hemingway, I thought he was such an adorable man, and wished he were alive... talk to him, anything, to appropriate some of that passion and that gift and that wonder for myself. I get the same feeling with T.S. Eliot... But Amory Blaine? Shoot! Can you fall in love with a literary character?

With Fitzgerald, it seems you can. I'd rather sleep with who he creates than he himself. This was the first Fitzgerald I've ever read - then I read all the rest of his novels. Several times each. Because I want to be a writer, and am somewhat of a writer I guess, I can't say this is my favorite Fitzgerald novel AS A WRITER. But as a PERSON, a young person, perhaps it is. Or it's very close.

This Side of Paradise is beautiful, ugly, brave, cowardly, immaculate, flawed. It's paradise lost and paradise regained and paradise in purgatory. It's everything life and man should or shouldn't be, all at once. I can perfectly understand why someone wouldn't like this novel, wouldn't understand, wouldn't appreciate. But I also understand that if all the world were Amory-ish or Amory-leaning, Amory-sympathetic, Amory-lovers, or even Amory-haters - somehow the world would just collapse and be ruined. And I think this is also a bit of what Fitzgerald was trying to impart, so it is as it should be.

This Side of Paradise is a truly classic work. Be warned though, having read The Great Gatsby as well, these are different books. Not better or worse, just different. As a member of the incoming Freshman class at Princeton, I read the book before starting. I will easily admit to not liking the first half of the book. However, the 2nd half is an, albeit depressing (until the last few pages), wonderfully written work about the lost soul of the youth (grr. . .I'm 18 and using the word youth) of the 1920s. The last 10 pages are offer an unparalleled view into the soul of a truly remarkable character. I didn't personally like Amory (for a variety of reasons), ie, I wouldn't want him to be my best friend, but he was an amazing character study (pardon the term). Learning about him through Fitzgerald was a fabulous experience. This book is definitely worth reading.

Susan Orlean is a master of taking the would-be normal, humdrum existence of your average person and elevating that person into a character that is both memorable and worth reading. She did it in the Orchid Thief and she does it in Saturday Night, a book composed of chapters each dedicated to how different people spend their average Saturday night. Among the selections are people cruising Main Street, going to dinner, dancing, college students partying and folks staying home. This book explores the history of Saturday night as "the" night that people look forward to and Orlean offers her own take on it. If anything, the book hinges on the reader's curiosity about what others are doing on any given weekend evening. If you're not curious, or not willing to sit through other people's seemingly routine experiences, this book may not be for you. If you are at all curious about the world around you, and what people do to blow off steam, buy this book today.

Susan Orlean invites us into the brief lives of numerous citizens who are experiencing their typical Saturday nights. One will learn about the history of the weekend, experience rituals and enjoy the company of many interesting individuals. She writes with a comfortable energy and the reader will certainly contemplate the weekend with a new reverence. Visit cruisers, diners, dieters and polka dancers. Understand their fascinations, their lonliness, their time to relax, their time to look forward to bestial pursuits. I really enjyed this book and her style is accessible and refreshing.

Subtitled, "my encounters with extraordinary people", this book is a treasure trove of tales about some of the most interesting (and to a great extent ordinary) people you'll ever read about and most of them are people you'd never know. Susan Orlean is a regular writer for The New Yorker and is one of their very finest. Her last book, "The Orchid Thief" was at once captivating and bizarre. "The Bullfighter Checks her Makeup," is a compilation of a number of her pieces from the New Yorker in which she details the comings and goings of very ordinary every day people... and manages to make them all seem extraordinary. The best part of Orlean's writing is that she keeps the space intact between herself as the observer and chronicler of these lives and the individuality expressed in each of the life stories these people have. Although the expression goes, "Life is stranger than fiction," I would argue that Susan Orlean demonstrates that "Life is funnier than fiction", too! From the couple who breed show dogs to an "average" ten year old boy, to the female bullfighter (not usually a woman's sport) to the African king driving taxis in New York, everyone who is profiled in this book is in their own way funny, interesting, entertaining, and some, to a tiny extent sad. We meet pre-teen surfer girls and the middle-aged women who were once "The Shaggs". We read about the guy who invented "the Big Chair" (you know that chair in which people are photographed at county fairs?) and a sweet group of southern gospel singers. No one is too bizarre, too ordinary, or too unlikely. Orlean makes it clear that we are surrounded every day by extraordinariness - everyone has a story and many of them have great stories.  I loved this book for exposing the wonders of the human condition.

Susan Orlean writes with more grace, style and wit than anyone in the magazine world today. These well-reported, beautifully crafted profiles of both known and unknown characters show her at the top of her form. Orlean has a knack for being at the right place at the right time to capture a telling detail or quote and, contrary to the wrongheaded and ignorant comments in a few of the customer reviews here, she is, if anything, self-effacing and unobtrusive as she brings the reader deeply into the lives of her subjects. Literary journalism as an art form necessarily includes the author's voice and point of view -- these are what make it less artificial and far more interesting than standard "objective" reporting. The rave reviews for this book in the New York Times and other publications are well justified.

After reading Susan Orlean's excellent The Orchid Thief last year and having followed some of her recent writing in The New Yorker (particularly a fantastic piece on the hapless New Hampshire girl-rock group from the 1970's, The Shaggs), I was eagerly awaiting this collection of profiles. It not only surpassed my very high expectations for literary quality, it is one of the funniest and most entertaining, lively and moving books I have read in quite awhile. She gets these people down perfectly and is a master of the revealing touch. The opening chapter on a typical 10-year-old American boy is my favorite -- it allows the reader to enter a kid's world very much from his point of view while overlaying a beautifully reported and crafted commentary that manages all at once to be empathetic, witty,ironic and highly informative. The ending of this piece, like the ending to both the introduction and the title piece on the first female matador in Spain which concludes the book, is hauntingly poignant and gets to what Orlean is really about here: showing the extraordinarily captivating nature of what seemingly ordinary people are really like when closely examined in their own subcultures. The intelligence and insight she brings to bear in joyfully sharing with the reader what she has discovered is what makes this book so wonderful.

Subtitled, a "True Story of Beauty and Obsession", The Orchid Thief first came to me in the form of a fascinating "New Yorker" article. Orlean, hooked by a small article in the paper about the theft of some valuable orchids from a Florida greenhouse, travels to Florida and begins the journalistic search for the whole story. Her protagonist is a weird bird named John Laroche who is part-time con artist, part-time 'collector', part-time orchid grower, and full-time nutcase. While Orlean does a fine job of detailing the events of the orchid 'burglery', what is even more fascinating is her take on the entire history of orchid-collecting and growing, of the wild ecology of Florida's Fakahatchee everglade and of a certain amount of history about the Seminole Indians. Like so many of Elmore Leonard's or John D. MacDonald's characters, Florida is rife with con-men, but to see them involved in cons not involving drugs, money, or gold, was a wonderful twist. For someone who generally enjoys a well-written novel, I was captivated by this tale. I agree with whoever said, fact IS weirder than fiction - you can't make stuff like this up!

Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief" is an intriguing look at people who are obsessed with collecting orchids. Originally, Ms. Orlean's main focus was to write a profile of John Laroche in "The New Yorker" magazine. Laroche is an offbeat character who spent a great deal of time and money amassing a huge orchid collection. When Laroche banded together with a group of Seminole Indians to steal orchids from the Fakahatchee Strand, a 63,000-acre preserve in southwest Florida, he was arrested and tried for his crime.

Orlean eventually expanded her article on Laroche into this book. She widened the scope of her research and came up with many interesting tidbits about orchids and those who collect them. For example, I learned that orchids often outlive human beings. In fact, orchids can theoretically live forever, since they have no natural enemies. Some orchid owners designate a person as an "orchid heir" in their wills, since the owners expect that their precious orchids will outlive them.

Orlean has a delicious sense of wonder, a beautiful and lyrical writing style, and an eye for fascinating details. She has the ability to place the reader in the middle of a swamp, at an orchid show, or on an expedition into the wilds of South America. Not only does Orlean provide the reader with little known facts about orchids, but she also explores some of the oddities of human nature. What causes people to become so passionate about collecting orchids that they risk their fortunes or even their lives to acquire rare species of this coveted plant? When does a passion for collecting orchids become an unhealthy obsession?

If you are tired of reading formulaic novels, you may want to join Susan Orlean on her exciting and memorable journey into the world of orchid collecting. You do not have to be a plant lover, a gardener or a botanist to enjoy "The Orchid Thief."

I love to learn new things. That's why this 1998 book by journalist Susan Orlean appealed to me. It's about orchids. And one particular eccentric man with a scheme to grow rich from Florida's endangered Ghost Orchid. But mostly, it's about the passion surrounding the special world of the orchid lover. And, also, it's about the writer's own passion for a good story.

On a visit to Florida, Ms. Orleans just happened to see a small article in the local newspaper about John Laroche, accused of stealing orchids from the Fakahatchee Swamp. On a whim, she went to the trial, became interested in the subject and, with a sense of humor and a great way with words, she takes the reader on her own journey of discovery. I love Ms. Orleans' writing. For example, she describes John Laroche as having "the posture of al dente spaghetti" and "the bulk and shape of a coat hanger".

I identified with the writer's experience completely. I was right with her as she explored the hot mucky swamps. And I listened with her ears as she interviewed collectors, business people and law enforcement agents. I learned about the Seminole Indians and their own particular story. I learned a lot of orchid history dating back hundreds of years which included a whole cast of European plunderers, smugglers and naturalists. And I learned about Florida, with all its beauty and land grabbing and swamps and personalities. A lot of research went into this book. It's full of facts and figures as well as the writer's personal observations. It certainly taught me a lot. It even drove me to the Internet to find out when the next orchid show will be in New York. I know I'll be there.

I loved this book and give it an extremely high recommendation. It certainly opened a whole new world for me.