Orchid Fever

You can get off alcohol, drugs, women, food and cars, but once you’re hooked on orchids you’re finished. [BBooks comment: We know this to be true!] You never get off orchids…never’ Joe Kunisch, orchid grower. When Eric Hansen entered the Borneo jungle in search of rare orchids, he didn’t know what he was letting himself in for. Five years later, he was still on the trail of one of the world’s strangest obsessions and some of humanity’s oddest obsessives. Hilarious, bizarre and compelling, here is a tale of corruption, murder and plant politics; of smugglers, icecream makers and visionary breeders from the Orinoco River to the hothouses of Kew. ‘Intelligent and captivating, original and seductive… Hansen’s description of these lascivious flowers is unimprovable. He can even describe smells’ (Candia Mc William,Evening Standard, London). ‘A cracking read and a testament to the twisted relationship between man and nature. It will make you look at the humble pot plant in a whole new light’ Scotsman. ‘It reads like a comic thriller…. You don’t have to be a classicist or a horticulturalist to enjoy this book. Plant politics are more gripping rhan the American primaries’ Literary Review.