Fotografía de autor
6 Obras 202 Miembros 10 Reseñas

Sobre El Autor

Craig Pittman is an award-winning journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller Oh, Florida!: How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country as well as four other books, and is cohost of the Welcome to Florida podcast. His work has won the Waldo Proffitt Award for mostrar más Excellence in Environmental Journalism in Florida four times. In 2020, he was named a Florida Literary Legend by the Florida Heritage Book Festival. Twice he has won the top investigative reporting award from the Society of Environmental Journalists, a national organization. He lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and two children. mostrar menos

Obras de Craig Pittman

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Conocimiento común

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male

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I wanted a light book and this filled the need.
Florida has always been a melting pot of train wrecks
Very few laws and endless criminal behavior.
But oh my they do it with such flamboyance and determination.
 
Denunciada
zmagic69 | 3 reseñas más. | Mar 31, 2023 |
I said in an earlier (way earlier) status update that this book was only ever going to appeal to a niche demographic, and I still say so now that I've finished it. Orchidists, or those that have been dragged along to greenhouses, shows, and sales all over the country - if not the world - subjected to endless hours of conversations about species, hybrids, variants, varieties, propagation, contamination, mealy bugs, scale ... *ahem* ... will find themselves nodding along to the insanity that's chronicled in this book and saying "Uh-huh, yep."

But it's a fascinating story whether or not you've got any knowledge of the orchid world. There's adventures in the Amazon, romantic dreams of glory, greed, smuggling, drama, investigations, and dramatic court scenes. I'd call it a Grisham tale with a notes and sources appendix, except it's really not; Pittman is a journalist and though the narrative is excellently written and easily read, it isn't written to be snappy entertainment, and it isn't fiction. This is an investigative journalism piece densely packed with details, events, and the players involved (most of them characters both on and off the page).

The story surrounds the discovery of a new orchid, a member of the family that includes those commonly called "Lady Slippers". This isn't just another lady slipper orchid, but a reportedly spectacular, once-in-a-century find; a new Phragmipedium that's (apparently) showier. far larger than all the rest, and strongly scented.

I say "apparently" because, honestly, it looks like any other Phragmipedium I've seen, and as the child of an orchid grower/breeder, I've seen a fair few. It's reported to change color as it ages, so who knows? It IS quantifiably special in terms of size though: the flowers grow to be 10–20 cm (4–8 in) wide - far larger than your average, delicately sized lady slipper. Still, call me sane, but that flower doesn't make me want to spend $10,000 to own it.

Back to the story: this flower is the catalyst for the downfall of at least half a dozen men and the damn near destruction of the Selby Botanical Gardens. The Scent Of Scandal is, at its heart, the story of one particularly romantic fool who was so desperate to have an orchid named after himself that he broke the laws of two countries and an international treaty to make it happen, in the process bringing down a slew of other naive, romantic fools who desperately wanted to 'play the game', exact revenge on a rival, and establish their necessity to their board of directors. On the sidelines, aiding, abetting, profiteering and stirring things up, is a cast of side characters who were equal parts greedy, stupid, and criminal.

The takeaway from this cautionary tale: don't smuggle the flower of the century out of one country and into another only to then ask the scientific community to name it after you. Having your name officially tied to the taxonomy of a smuggled flower makes plausible deniability awkward. If you're the scientific community tempted to help him: don't. Just don't. And - I can't stress this enough - don't keep a piece to grow for yourself. It makes the Justice Department cranky.

Craig Pittman did an amazing job putting this narrative, with a cast that often felt like thousands and settings all over the globe, into a tight, cohesive timeline that followed this story from a chance conversation on a plane between two strangers, through the dramatic headlines, to the conclusion, where nobody really got what they wanted, including the man with his name on the orchid; a few people died tragically, and just about everybody else ended up unemployed and on probation.

This story, while fascinating it its own right, held a deeper appeal to me. As most know, I was born and raised in Sarasota, and my father, as mentioned above, raised, bred, showed, sold, wrote, lectured about and generally just breathed orchids. He was one of these - and I say this with love and adoration - nut jobs who go crazy for orchids. He knew most, if not all, these people well, and did a lot of Selby's lab work for a time. He was NOT, however, a collector that went scouting for unknowns in foreign jungles. His obsession was hybridisation - crossing known species to come up with new and sometimes wondrous forms. Orchids were to him what peas were the Mendel. In this way, he was able to officially name* orchids for several of his kids from the comfort of his laboratory, without anyone getting a grand jury subpoena.

So, if you're interested in botany or orchids, and you like stories of true crime/international intrigue involving a bunch of naive old men and a few authentically criminal characters, or even if you're curious by any book categorised as "True Crime / Gardening" (I kid you not), this book might be worth finding. I enjoyed it immensely - once the necessary background is established, the story is riveting.

People are truly, deeply crazy.


* in the name of accuracy, my dad didn't do the naming; he made thousands of crosses in his time and never bothered registering most of them. When other growers wanted to register/show one of his crosses, they'd contact him for permission; he always told them yes, but sometimes he'd randomly request they name it after one of us. Thus it is that I've got a big, gaudy flower that is in every way the exact opposite of what I'd have picked, living on through the taxonomic records with my name on it. Not that I'm complaining - I have a plant named after me! And I didn't get arrested for my little pea sized piece of 'immortality'.
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Denunciada
murderbydeath | 2 reseñas más. | Feb 9, 2022 |
I'm not sure this is the kind of book that has broad appeal, but as one of the rare true natives of the Sunshine State (as are three previous generations of my dad's side), I had a very vested interest in reading it. I grew up in a blissful bubble of ignorance regarding Florida's off-the-charts location on the crazy scale, and it wasn't until after I moved away that I started hearing all the jokes. I own that I was more than a little bit indignant.

Now that I've read this book, I get it. What felt totally normal to me for decades, while living in the midst of it all, when looked at objectively from a distance, is decidedly ... eccentric, to say the least. I'd like to blame all the carpet-baggers, but if I'm being truthful, Florida was invaded by the nutty centuries ago.

However, as Pittman points out, we may be crazy, but we're also history makers and trendsetters. For better or worse, a lot of what's good and bad in American can be traced to Florida. NASCAR (admittedly, a matter of perspective as to whether this is a good or bad thing), the space program, USA Today, and authors like Carl Hiaasen, Meg Cabot, Ransom Riggs and Donald J. Sobol. We also have to own the highest rate of concealed carry permits in the nation and the lowest level of funding for mental health programs, a combination most rational people would say is unwise. Also, The National Enquirer. And threaded throughout all the good, bad and ugly are the most hilarious kinds of crazy.

"Does it seem strange to you that the beloved figure of Walt Disney would wind up working with a guy tied to the CIA, drugs, Cuban revolutionaries and the Mafia? Does that odd juxtaposition make you feel uncomfortable? In Florida, we call that feeling 'Tuesday'. "

Pittman does a great job making just about all Floridians look like the cracked fruitcakes we probably are to some extent, and he does almost as good a job tying all the crazy in to the rest of the country. Occasionally, his tone veers into derisive and it's clear that while he may be a native too, he's not a kool-aid drinker. Floridians should be proud of their eccentricities, but they should be appalled by the truly horrific way we allow our state to be run. I'm not sure we've ever elected a sane politician on a state level; hell, I'm not sure we've ever elected one that was law abiding.

Still, I miss my home state. Florida is a part of my soul; a big reason why I can be both conservative and tolerant, why for me anything less than 50mph winds is a breezy day, and why a 10 foot long reptile won't make me blink an eye, but a 2 inch cockroach will send me running, screaming bloody murder all the way.

If you've even wondered why Florida is the way it is, this book won't be able to explain why, but it is going to make you laugh.
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Denunciada
murderbydeath | 3 reseñas más. | Jan 26, 2022 |
Wild And Maddening. In this all-too-real tale, Pittman does an excellent job of showing the history of the Florida Panther, how the sub-species came to the brink of extinction, and how government officials bungled the attempt at saving them before begrudgingly doing what it took to save the sub-species. Outstanding work bringing to light an amazing story of the perils of human intervention into natural systems - and how humans can occasionally do something right by those natural systems. Very much recommended.… (más)
 
Denunciada
BookAnonJeff | 2 reseñas más. | Jul 11, 2021 |

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Obras
6
Miembros
202
Popularidad
#109,082
Valoración
3.9
Reseñas
10
ISBNs
24

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