#susan orlean

[longreads]

Recently, Brendan O'Meara sat down with Susan Orlean for the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, where the pair engaged in a wide-ranging, thoughtful conversation about her new memoir, Joyride, why it's important to cultivate curiosity and resilience and a writer. 

Check out this short soundbite from the episode and be sure to read the excerpt. 

 "What motivates me is a very optimistic, very joyful commitment to the idea that the more you learn of the world the better, whether it’s subjects that disturb you, something that surprises you, delights you." 

 —Susan Orlean, in conversation with Brendan O'Meara for the Creative Nonfiction Podcast.

[annieisshehuman]

St. Vincent photographed by Thomas Whiteside for the new W collection

[dk-thrive]

I was intrigued by how a small life, when sympathetically examined, could burst, effloresce: its simplicity opening into a complex and astonishing tale. I believe this; I believe it completely. I inhabit the world believing this, and I’m rewarded by it, because every encounter feels freighted with enormous, exhilarating possibility, the promise that I might learn something amazing, that I might meet someone who will tell me something I didn’t know.

— Susan Orlean, Joyride: A Memoir (Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, October 14, 2025)

[randomaccessmike]

"Every problem that society has, the library has, too, because the boundary between society and the library is porous; nothing good is kept out of the library, and nothing bad." (Susan Orlean, The Library Book)

[teedeekay]

John Flansburgh, John Linnell and Marty Beller of They Might Be Giants made a special appearance at New York City's Symphony Space for the release of Susan Orlean's new memoir, "Joyride".

They performed "Doctor Worm", "How Can I Sing Like A GIrl?" and "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" as a trio.

[bookaddict24-7]

“I loved wandering around the bookshelves, scanning the spines until something happened to catch my eye. Those visits were dreamy, frictionless interludes that promised I would leave richer than I arrived. It wasn't like going to a store with my mom, which guaranteed a tug-of-war between what I wanted and what my mother was willing to buy me; in the library I could have anything I wanted.”

―The Library Book by Susan Orlean

[a-ramblinrose]

“A library is a good place to soften solitude; a place where you feel part of a conversation that has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years even when you’re all alone. The library is a whispering post. You don’t need to take a book off a shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen. It was that affirmation that always amazed me. Even the oddest, most particular book was written with that kind of crazy courage—the writer’s belief that someone would find his or her book important to read. I was struck by how precious and foolish and brave that belief is, and how necessary, and how full of hope it is to collect these books and manuscripts and preserve them. It declares that all these stories matter, and so does every effort to create something that connects us to one another, and to our past and to what is still to come.”

― Susan Orlean, The Library Book

[rubianomita]

It's over. Everything's over. I did everything wrong. I want my life back. I want it back before everything got fucked up. I want to be a baby again. I want to be new. I WANT TO BE NEW.

Adaptation. (2002)