Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

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(Paperback - Reprint)

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  • Publisher: Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
  • Pub. Date: May 2007
  • ISBN-13: 9781565125605
  • Sales Rank: 1,495
  • 350pp
  • Edition Description: Reprint
 
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Synopsis

Nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski reflects back on his wild and wondrous days with a circus. It's the Depression Era and Jacob, finding himself parentless and penniless, joins the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. There he meets the freaks, grifters, and misfits that populate this world. He introduces us to Marlena, beautiful star of the equestrian act; to August, her charismatic but twisted husband (and the circus's animal trainer); and to Rosie, the seemingly untrainable elephant Jacob cares for. Beautifully written, with a luminous sense of time and place, Water for Elephants tells of love in a world in which love's a luxury few can afford.

The New York Times - Elizabeth Judd

Circuses showcase human beings at their silliest and most sublime, and many unlikely literary figures have been drawn to their glitzy pageantry, soaring pretensions and metaphorical potential (Marianne Moore leaps to mind). Unsurprisingly, writers seem liberated by imagining a spectacle where no comparison ever seems inflated, no development impossible. For better and for worse, Gruen has fallen under the spell. With a showman's expert timing, she saves a terrific revelation for the final pages, transforming a glimpse of Americana into an enchanting escapist fairy tale.

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Biography

Sara Gruen is the author of the bestseller Riding Lessons and Flying Changes.She lives north of Chicago with her husband, her three children, four cats, two goats, two dogs, and a horse.

Customer Reviews

decent.by Anonymous

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July 03, 2009: Water for Elephants is a feel good book, what one wishes to happen while reading it does happen. It does not make me think like I want a good book to do. It does not pull me towards the plot or the main characters but I do feel for the elephant. I feel more compassion and emotion towards the minor characters and the elephant more than the main characters. My heart was pulled and aching for what was happening to them, the minor characters, walter and colin, more than the jacob and marlina.

great bookby Anonymous

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June 29, 2009: This book is definitely worth reading. It's a really great story that got me hooked from the very start.


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