[1] He wrote Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood (1996), Plundering Paradise: The Hand of Man on the Galapagos Islands (2002), and Eagle Blue: A Team, A Tribe and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska (2006).

Congressman and former civil rights leader John Lewis; Rise and Walk: The Trial and Triumph of Dennis Byrd (1993), written with New York Jet defensive end Dennis Byrd; and Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do to Save Them (2011), written with actor and environmental activist Ted Danson.

D'Orso was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and was raised in military base cities, including: Key West, Florida; San Diego, California; Charleston, South Carolina; and Frankfurt, Germany.

[17] Eagle Blue was about rural Native American villagers in arctic Alaska shifting from a subsistence lifestyle of hunting, trapping and fishing to a modern cash economy.

[18] Plundering Paradise described the social and environmental impact of thousands of Ecuadorians moving to the Galapagos Islands in search of jobs.