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Customer Rating:

Summary: A wonderful examination of the human condition!
Comment: 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.

Customer Rating:

Summary: a thoroughly enjoyable collection of thumbnail sketches
Comment: Though the hip New Yorker style may not be for everyone, I loved just about every one of these
stories. For all the criticisms leveled against Orlean, she has an uncanny ability to capture her
subjects and get inside their lifestyle. The range of these stories is what makes them so
interesting -- one of my favorites was the simple portrait of a typical 10 year old boy. In fact, I
enjoyed the obscure people's portraits more than those of famous people like Bill Blass and Tonya
Harding. Orleans is great at picking out the nuances of everyday life that make humans so
fascinating. It's the type of book that's best split up into smaller sections. I read it straight
through which can get a bit repetitive, but I still found myself reading late into the night to
finish.

Customer Rating:

Summary: OK, Not Great
Comment: I began this book, a collection of essays about people Orlean had interviewed, with enthusiasm, but
finished it with relief. The essays were well-written, but soon began to seem too much alike to be
of great interest. I ended up skipping some that were not about subjects I found intrinsically
interesting.

Several of the essays date from the 1980s, and read as though they did. For example,
the author's observations regarding 1980s pop singer Tiffany seemed dated, in light of the current
slick marketing of teen stars (or acts aimed at the teen market). It would have been worth making
some effort to update the stories, and place them in some kind of context. Instead, this is just a
collection of previously published pieces, not all of which should have been brought back to light.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Engaging, if Also a Little Repetitive
Comment: Susan Orlean is indeed one of the best magazine writers out there right now--one of the best catches
of Tina Brown's from the Dark Ages of the New Yorker! And this book is definitely a must for anyone
interested in the contemporary nonfiction world. However, by limiting the collection to merely
profiles, Orlean has limited the reader's appreciation of her great talents. The books ends up
repeating itself too much.

Customer Rating:

Summary: The Dreaded Urge to Collect That Which Should Not Be
Comment: Susan Orlean's magazine pieces (usually in The New Yorker) define a certain bright, glossy, mannered
high standard in magazine entertainment. At best they're very fluent and well-reported, at worst
they cloy and preen with a glib, narcissistic flatness that may not bug you too much until you try
to read the piece a second time. (In this respect Orlean and Adam Gopnick are the Homecoming Queen
and King of enamelled profundity in literary journalism.) She (or her editors) generally choose her
subjects wisely, so novelty and variation disguise her remarkably narrow range. Will someone want to
read this stuff in 10 or 20 years? I don't want to read them again now. Write that subscription
renewal check for The New Yorker, but save the hardcover bucks for writing that isn't trapped in a
self-enchanted hall of mirrors.

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