Title: Traveler in a Strange Land
Product review: Susan Orlean's new book is one more argument in favor of the theory that all writing is travel writing. Most of the pieces in My Kind of Place have appeared in The New Yorker Magazine and others. They cover a wide range of offbeat topics.Since these articles are all over the map, so to speak, you may end up picking and choosing. Some are very short and personal, others are longer and more journalistic. Some of my favorites were the piece on baby beauty pageants, in which Orlean brings out the rather creepy aspect of such contests very subtly; the taxidermy convention, also a surreal occasion; and a stay in Midland, Texas, a dusty oil town whose claim to fame is being the hometown of George W. Bush.Orlean's travels outside the States were also good, just not quite as interesting as when she explores the weirdness that exists in our own back yard.
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