- Unknown Binding
- Publisher: Vintage Books; Vintage Departures edition (2000)
- ASIN: B002KDOBY6
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
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There is something distinctive about the sight and sound of a human body falling from the rain forest canopy. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
There is something distinctive about the sight and sound of a human body falling from the rain forest canopy. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Whether you happen to be an orchid lover, or merely a curious bystander, "Orchid Fever (A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust and Lunacy)" will have you by turns helpless with mirth and seething with indignation, or else simply agog with incredulity from start to finish. For it is, quite simply, an absolutely stunning piece of investigative journalism, dressed up as a tale of personal obsession and eccentricities. Written using plain language and with an outstanding witticism, it makes for compelling reading throughout, whether or not you know anything about orchids, or the orchid-growing and trading communities that it explores.
Chapter by chapter, alternating hilarious episodes with the downright unsettling or just plain unbelievable, Eric Hansen gradually lays bare the seedy underbelly of a world that perhaps few of us realise exists. He reveals an alarming world-wide conspiracy, fuelled by greed, protected and upheld by idiotic international bureaucracy and a network of power politics, which daily threaten innocent lives and legitimate livelihoods as well as vast swathes of natural fauna that they purport to be protecting.
Populated as it is by gentle, likeable heroes, blackguardly villains, utter buffoons and the most outrageously bizarre of characters, it is sometimes easy to forget that this book is factual, so far-fetched are some of the events and scenarios that its author recounts. And yet, this somehow makes the book all the more scary, for occasionally things happen to make you realise that it is not a work of fiction. And at that point, the anger sets in... anger that things should be this way and are likely to remain so, despite the best efforts of some of the book's obvious heroes.
Thoroughly researched over a period of some seven years and never less than fascinating, this book exposes the full and terrifying consequences for anyone who succumbs to orchid fever. It is an essential read for anyone who thinks that orchids are nothing more than beautiful but harmless flowering plants. Or indeed for anyone who has never heard of fox testicle ice-cream!
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Given the lengths that the author had to go to to get his information, you would have thought this book involved serious murderers, drug trafficers or underworld characters. In reality this book shows the lengths to which authorities, people and nature will go to to protect these beautiful plants. This book is compelling and full of astonishing revelations.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
One minor moan, which I will get out of the way first ... it reads a bit like a lot of articles strung togather rather than developing like you would espect a book-length study to do. But who cares really? It's a hoot, it's dead interesting, and it's very seldom that it goes off the boil in any way. I really loved it and I totally recommend it. My grandma is an orchid fancier and I really don't know if I'll be able to look her in the eye next time I go over for a coffee!!!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Heavy breathing among the Paphiopedilae
"I thumbed through the pages ... Immediately I was confronted with centerfolds showing ... moistened, hot-pink lips that pouted in the direction of tautly curved shafts and heavily... Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2007 by Joseph Haschka
wierd and wonderful
This fabulous book takes you on a magical tour through the wierd and wonderful world of orchid hunters/collectors and growers detailing the incredible passion of these (very... Read more
Published on 25 Nov 2002
The dark underworld of the orchid-growing business
Eric Hansen explores the dark underbelly of the orchid-growing business by travelling the world and meeting the varied, interesting and ultimately nutty characters that inhabit it. Read more
Published on 6 May 2001
An absolutely fascinating read
The sub-title 'A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy' sums the book up well. In a wonderfully readable style, Hansen cultivates the shadowy larger-than-life figures of... Read more
Published on 1 Dec 2000
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