My kind of place - Susan Orlean

New Yorker writer and author of The Library Book takes readers on a series
of remarkable journeys in this uniquely witty, sophisticated, and far-flung travel
book.

In this irresistible collection of adventures far and near, Orlean conducts
a tour of the world via its subcultures, from the heart of the African music scene
in Paris to the World Taxidermy Championships in Springfield, Illinois-and even into
her own apartment, where she imagines a very famous houseguest taking advantage of
her hospitality.

With Orlean as guide, lucky readers partake in all manner of armchair
activity. They will climb Mt. Fuji and experience a hike most intrepid Japanese have
never attempted; play ball with Cuba's Little Leaguers, promising young athletes
born in a country where baseball and politics are inextricably intertwined; trawl
Icelandic waters with Keiko, everyone's favorite whale as he tries to make it on
his own; stay awhile in Midland, Texas, hometown of George W. Bush, a place where
oil time is the only time that matters; explore the halls of a New York City school
so troubled it's known as "Horror High"; and stalk caged tigers in Jackson, New Jersey,
a suburban town with one of the highest concentrations of tigers per square mile
anywhere in the world.

Vivid, humorous, unconventional, and incomparably entertaining,
Susan Orlean's writings for The New Yorker have delighted readers for over a decade.
My Kind of Place is an inimitable treat by one of America's premier literary journalists.