The Author (Susan Orlean)

Susan Orlean is a well-known American journalist and author, primarily of non-fiction. She has worked for several years as a staff writer for “The New Yorker” magazine, but is perhaps most well-known for her book The Orchid Thief, which was the basis of the film “Adaptation,” in which she was played by Meryl Streep. Her journalistic credentials and experience are evident in much of the book’s content, which is primarily defined by research-based considerations of history (i.e. events related to the fire that decimated the Los Angeles Central Library in 1986, and of the library’s institutional history). There is also evidence of Orlean’s journalistic experience in her recounting of the library’s day-to-day operations, and the personal and professional perspectives of the library staff performing those operations.

All that said, the narrative also contains several evocations of Orlean’s subjective perspectives...