{"id":558,"date":"2025-06-02T17:33:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T17:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/?page_id=558"},"modified":"2025-06-02T17:33:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T17:33:41","slug":"joyride","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/books\/joyride\/","title":{"rendered":"Joyride"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"Rin<\/p>\n

Buy iBook via iTunes<\/a>
\nBuy from BN.com<\/a>
\nBuy at Bookshop<\/a>
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\nMore of my books…<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Joyride<\/h1>\n

From the beloved New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, New York Times<\/em> bestselling author of The Orchid Thief<\/em> and The Library Book<\/em> and hailed as \u201ca national treasure\u201d by The Washington Post<\/em>, Joyride<\/em> is a masterful memoir of finding her creative calling and purpose that invites us to approach life with wonder, curiosity, and an irrepressible sense of delight.<\/p>\n

About the Book<\/h3>\n

\u201cThe story of my life is the story of my stories,\u201d writes Susan Orlean in this extraordinary, era-defining memoir from one of the greatest practitioners of narrative nonfiction of our time. Joyride is a magic carpet ride through Orlean\u2019s life and career, where every day is an opportunity for discovery and every moment holds the potential for wonder. Throughout her storied career, her curiosity draws her to explore the most ordinary and extraordinary of places, from going deep inside the head of a regular ten-year-old boy for a legendary profile (\u201cThe American Man Age Ten\u201d) to reporting on a woman who owns twenty-seven tigers, from capturing the routine magic of Saturday night to climbing Mt. Fuji.<\/p>\n

Not only does Orlean\u2019s account of a writing life offer a trove of indispensable gleanings for writers, it\u2019s also an essential and practical guide to embracing any creative path. She takes us through her process of dreaming up ideas, managing deadlines, connecting with sources, chasing every possible lead, confronting writer\u2019s block and self-doubt, and crafting the perfect lede\u2014a Susan specialty.<\/p>\n

While Orlean has always written her way into other people\u2019s lives in order to understand the human experience, Joyride is her most personal book ever\u2014a searching journey through finding her feet as a journalist, recovering from the excruciating collapse of her first marriage, falling head-over-heels in love again, becoming a mother while mourning the decline of her own mother, sojourning to Hollywood for films based on her work including Adaptation and Blue Crush, and confronting mortality. Joyride is also a time machine to a bygone era of journalism, from Orlean\u2019s bright start in the golden age of alt-weeklies to her career-making days working alongside icons such as Robert Gottlieb, Tina Brown, David Remnick, Anna Wintour, Sonny Mehta, and Jonathan Karp\u2014forces who shaped the media industry as we know it today.<\/p>\n

Infused with Orlean\u2019s signature warmth and wit, Joyride is a must-read for anyone who hungers to start, build, and sustain a creative life. Orlean inspires us to seek out daily inspiration and rediscover the marvels that surround us.<\/p>\n

Reviews<\/h3>\n

\u201cA celebration of a supremely accomplished writing life\u2026 the great value of this book is the MFA in nonfiction writing that Orlean packs into it, full of some of the most useful advice on craft that any budding (or long-practicing, for that matter) writer could ask for \u2026 A spry, entertaining memoir\/writing workshop by a nonfiction artist at the top of her game.\u201d
\n\u2014Kirkus Reviews (starred review)<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buy iBook via iTunes Buy from BN.com Buy at Bookshop Buy at Amazon More of my books… Joyride From the beloved New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book and hailed as \u201ca national treasure\u201d by The Washington Post, Joyride is a masterful memoir of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":10,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-558","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":561,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/558\/revisions\/561"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.susanorlean.com\/author\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}