Books About Unusual Hobbies and Obsessions

A Victorian gentleman once spent his entire fortune amassing the world's largest collection of human hair. He catalogued each strand by colour, texture, and the occupation of its former owner. While his particular obsession died with him, the human impulse to pursue the peculiar remains gloriously alive—as these six books prove.

Susan Orlean's *The Orchid Thief* plunges us into the swampy underworld of Florida's flower fanatics, where collectors risk prosecution and poisonous snakes to steal rare orchids from protected lands. Her protagonist, John Laroche, emerges as both criminal and philosopher, a man who sees the universe in a single bloom. It's a perfect entry point for understanding how passion tips into obsession.

From the humid Everglades to the controlled chaos of Scrabble tournaments, Stefan Fatsis's *Word Freak* reveals competitive wordplay as a parallel universe with its own legends, scandals, and heartbreaks. Fatsis doesn't just observe—he becomes one of them, transforming from journalist to ranked player, showing us how quickly an outsider can become consumed by a subculture's gravitational pull.

Tony Horwitz takes this participatory approach even further in *Confederates in the Attic*, embedding himself with Civil War re-enactors who starve themselves to achieve the proper "corpse look" for battlefield scenes. His journey through the American South uncovers a world where history isn't past but painfully, sometimes disturbingly, present.

The stakes escalate dramatically in Kirk Wallace Johnson's *The Feather Thief*, which reads like a thriller despite being entirely true. A young flautist breaks into a British museum to steal Victorian bird specimens, their feathers destined for the underground market of salmon fly-tying enthusiasts. It's a crime story that reveals an entire shadow economy built on nineteenth-century plumage.

John Berendt's *Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil* proves that sometimes the most fascinating obsessions belong to entire communities. Savannah emerges as a city fixated on its own eccentricity, where society matrons walk invisible dogs and millionaires plot murder between martinis.

Mary Roach's *Stiff* might seem the odd book out, but her exploration of what happens to donated bodies reveals perhaps the ultimate collectors: the scientists, researchers, and educators who find endless fascination in human remains.

Start with *The Orchid Thief* if you want literary journalism at its finest, or dive into *The Feather Thief* if you prefer your obsessions with a side of crime. For those who appreciate the macabre, begin with *Stiff* or *Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil*. Just be warned: reading about others' obsessions has a peculiar side effect. You might find yourself developing one of your own.