Customer Reviews

Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Eric Hansen's Orchid Fever is a quick, breezy and highly entertaining read. I just picked up a copy at one of the Orchid Gardens mentioned in the book, and will never look at the place the same way again. As with any avocation that stirs passion, the world of orchids has produced as many oddball varieties of aficionados as there are varieties of orchids. Hnasen brings them all wonderfully to life and you feel like a friend to many of them (except for the CITES nazis). Being relatively new to the orchid world I was able to appreciate the references to certain species, but by no means do you have to grow or even like orchids to love the book. I read the book in a day and my thoughts today have drifted to wondering about the characters that I had met, such as Xavier in Paris and the Harley-riding guys in the States that have been infected by the Orchid Fever.
The book wraps up with a heartwarming tale of Tom Nelson in Minnesota, slogging through blackfly and mosquito infested roadside ditches to save native plants from destruction. Not out of money but because it is the right and noble thing to do. It is people like him that give a glimmer of hope in a world that can often cause despair. Eric Hansen's book also serves the same purpose and I highly recommend it!

What a tremendous read - I had to keep reminding myself it was non-fiction! Eric, I really was entertained.

This morning at around two AM, I polished off the last page of 'Orchid Fever'. As a budding author and a generally inquisitive person, I appreciated this work very much. What Hansen has accomplished is a triumph in the field of literary journalism: the perfect balance of interview, research, politics, imagination and anecdote. He has availed his readership of such a wide array of facts, and made them so accessible--! Running through those pages was as effortless as taking in a deep, clean breath of air, yet that single breath has left me so happy and fulfilled...

As I read, I searched the Web for images of the blossoms (and some of the places) he described; this provided me with the perfect counterpoint to your lush prose. No doubt the cost of publishing a work with full-color photographs would be outrageous (and I am grateful for the affordability of the book), but I cannot imagine having grasped his meaning as fully without sneaking a peek for myself. Doubtless other readers have been, and will be likewise compelled.

I am so grateful for the years Hansen put into this book. He has sparked in me a gentle strain of orchid fever, nonetheless one that will surely follow me through life.

I'm a guy. I don't raise orchid, own orchids or even really have an interest in orchids. Regardless, this was one of the best books I have read in a long time. It is very interesting to read about the crazy word of "orchid people." I had no idea there was so much politics, passion, intrique, prison-time etc associated with orchids. Eric Hansen has a very smooth, intelligent and interesting style. I think almost anyone would get a kick out of this interesting book.

After reading Hansen's Motoring with Mohammed, I vowed to read everything and anything he writes or has written. So I had to read Orchid Fever (don't get it confused with Orchid Thief), a novel about greed, thievery, skullduggery, incomprehensible gov't regulations, and an underworld of orchid fanciers/growers that rivals the drug trade. Populated with eccentric characters and devoted fanatics, Orchid Fever makes for fascinating reading.

Orchids, my next great obsession! If you are thinking about bowing to Lady Flora, read this book. Either as a how-to, or a cautionary tale, hear bodies crashing down thru the forest canopy. Discover orchids that smell...naughty. Mr. Hansen paints a florid picture past and present of perfect obsession laced with the very real beauty of this extrordinary flower. Read and revel.

I just finished reading Orchid Fever and I really enjoyed it. It was recommended to me by an orchid dealer from whom I recently bought my first orchid (a Brachia veracosa- a second Orchid hybrid soon followed).

I first became aware of Cites because I kept birds (I still have an umbrella cockatoo). I remember when Cites was first passed, it seemed like a good idea, then I attended an AFA convention and started hearing the horror stories. A breeder whose birds were confiscated later recovered most of them, but lost an irreplaceable rare Gang Gang Cockatoo, one of a bonded pair. It amazes me that Cites allows people to confiscate animals and plants only to let them die because of lack of knowledge of how to care for them. How is that protecting a species?

This is an excellent thought provoking book. I highly recommend it.

When two men asked him to return to Borneo to help find a species of orchids, Eric Hansen didn't know he would be [drawn] into the orchid world. He traveled to Borneo, and also to Sarawak, England, France, Holland, Minnesota, etc. Orchids may sound boring, but Eric Hansen finds the adventurous side of the story. Orchid Fever is the tale of Hansen's venture into the orchid world of regulations, obsession, and orchidophiles.
Hansen meets people whose obsessions vary greatly from others he met. A Japanese real estate developer developed such an obsession with orchids that, when his house was demolished by an earthquake, he ran to his greenhouse to check his orchids, and then stopped to wonder where his wife was amidst the rubble. Tom Nelson falls on the opposite end of the spectrum and saves orchids by going to sites where orchids will be destroyed, and collects and replants them. Hansen meets the people who make orchid ice cream, the people travel to different orchid shows, and the man whose greenhouse "runs on a high-tech life-support system that controls light, heat, cooling, and humidity by computer."
Even a person with no interest in orchids can enjoy the adventure in this story. Hansen is a clever writer with a quick wit. "It was a crazy, whacked-out group of people, and whether I liked it or not, I could not get enough of them."

The name said it all. "Orchid Fever: A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy" is one multi-faced novel which most readers would either cherish or dislike. Its pattern is dynamic: the initial momentum was sustained till the very end.
The 272 pages that constituted this true story explored the strange world of orchids using men and women as its horticultural tools. It is one ominous tale that is rich in humour.
This story has a hermaphroditic outlook. It shuffles between a crime thriller and a love story. It is well-written, and very captivating.

Orchid Fever is a great read. It is engaging, funny, informative, and outrageous. The author takes the reader into the hidden world of orchids introducing growers, breeders, scientists and hobbyists. Along the way the reader learns many fascinating facts about plant botany, plant politics, pollination processes and the many uses of orchids. Eric Hansen, an adventure traveler, is an excellent writer, immediately engaging the reader's attention and holding it throughout the book. He is a real storyteller. Each chapter reads like a delicious short story. The book was our Reading Group selection this month as a prelude to the big orchid show in our area next month. It was agreed we would never again look at orchids in quite the same way. We had a lively, laughing time discussing the book and in conclusion it received an all-thumbs-up.