To many people, Susan Orlean is a character played by Meryl Streep in the film Adaptation, which is based on Orlean’s book The Orchid Thief. Others know her for her decades-long work as a staff writer for the New Yorker. Not long ago, I read and enjoyed The Library Book; in it, Orlean tells of the devastating fire that destroyed much of the Los Angeles Central Library in 1986, and then launches into a fascinating multifaceted true tale of libraries in general.

Joyride is a celebration of Orlean’s lifelong love of writing. Her writing career is the core of the book, compared to which the details of her personal life comprise a sort of scaffolding set up to support the writing adventures. Early on she states: “I write because I think it’s important. There are a million different kinds of writing, but this belief applies to all of them. Writing in all its forms is the essence of human interaction.” And a little further on, she clarifies that “I can respond to the question of why I write with a very simple answer: I write because I must.” This is similar to my own statement that I have repeated many times: I write because I can’t not write. The story of Orlean’s life is the story of her obsession with writing. That’s what drew me into this book and kept me enthralled throughout it. I soon realized that there were so many marvelous quotes on writing that there was no way I could include more than a smattering of them in this review. All you writers out there: read Joyride and you’ll recognize a kindred spirit.

That’s not to say that Orlean’s writing career is similar to mine or anyone else’s. She has great talent, true, but there are many other writers who also have great talent but have not had the opportunities or sheer luck that Orlean has enjoyed. When she was starting out, she advanced rapidly from small magazines to midsized magazines to journalistic giants such as the New Yorker. She’s had expense accounts that have enabled her to journey all over the world in pursuit of unique and often quirky stories. But expense accounts and high salaries and advances and royalties are not what make real writers. Those are just the peripheral tools, the fallout, the residue of the writing experience. I really don’t care about the glamorous aspects of working for a major magazine: interviewing and hobnobbing with celebrities and so on. That’s just bells and whistles. If that was the main focus of this book I would have tossed it aside early on. What redeems it is Orlean’s commitment to her work, to her art. It is obvious that she would continue to write even if she were relegated to a tent on a street corner. In fact, it is clear that what gives her writing flare and immediacy and grit and substance is her willingness to dive into extraordinary situations in pursuit of a story’s essence.

Apart from Joyride, Orlean has spent her career digging deep into the lives of others, diminishing her own presence so that the people and cultures she writes about can shine; it is exhilarating, though, to read of her stepping into the spotlight as she shares the process of writing her most renowned stories and books. Henry Miller wrote that “writing is a voyage of discovery,” and that’s the approach Orlean takes as she goes from an initial interest in a subject to diving in and researching and writing about it in all of its ramifications. At least for me, that’s what bursts through in Joyride more than anything: the sheer exuberance of the creative process.