My son got married and moved to Florida where his new wife’s family lived, so I’ve been more interested in Florida lately.  “The Orchid Thief” (635.934 OR) evokes something quintessentially Floridian “always fomenting change, its natural landscapes just moments away from being drained and developed, its most manicured places only an instant away from collapsing back into jungle.”  The author writes a first-person description of her relationship with John LaRoche, a man obsessed with orchids, off-putting, but at the same time somehow likeable.  He was arrested for removing rare orchids from the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve.  He was working for the Seminole Indian tribe, however, and since they aren’t required to abide by the Endangered Plants and Animals Act, he didn’t think he had to either.  So there was going to be a trial.  Until then, Susan Orlean accompanies him on his explorations searching for orchids, including tramping through a waist-deep swamp with machete-carrying convicts, feeling around for alligators with her foot in sinkholes.  What would she do it she felt an alligator?  What would it do?  The reader learns a lot of fascinating tidbits about orchids, the history of Florida, and the Seminole Indians.  More than anything, the book is about passion, the author’s no less than John LaRoche’s.  She writes: “…I realized more and more that he was only an extreme, not an aberration–that most people in some way or another do strive for something exceptional to pursue, even at their peril, rather than abide an ordinary life.”  What do I pursue?  I pursue reading and discussing and, yes, sometimes it’s at my peril.   See also: the movie “Adaptation” (DVD COMEDY ADAPTATION) based on the book and starring Meryl Streep.