DescriptionIn this short story from Nathan Englander's collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, a group of World War II-era Hasids, mistakenly put on a circus train instead of a transport to a death camp, are assumed to be acrobats. They perform a clumsy act, which their Nazi audience applauds as a parody of "Jewish ballet".
DescriptionA poor family moves to 18th-century London, where the father has been offered a job as a carpenter for a circus. His children befriend a young girl who introduces them to the great city. Their neighbor is none other than the real-life poet, William Blake. Best-selling author Tracy Chevalier also wrote Girl with a Pearl Earring .
DescriptionAnnie Oakley was without a doubt the greatest markswoman who ever lived. Born in 1860 in Darke County, Ohio, she rose from obscure and impoverished beginnings to become the best-known woman of her time. Courtney Ryley Cooper's classic biography traces O…
DescriptionBarely five feet tall, suicidally courageous, obsessed with tigers, and sexually eccentric, Mabel Stark was the greatest female tiger trainer in history. Clad in her leather suits and married five times, she was the Mae West of tiger taming. In the 1910s…
DescriptionA trapeze star of the 1920s, his present-day counterpart and a colorful supporting cast reveal the heartbreak and gritty reality behind the tinsel: a story of death and daring under the Big Top. This is part of Helen Borten's A Sense of Place series. Mix Engineer: Marilyn Ries Funding: Corporation for Public Broadcasting…
DescriptionAn atmospheric tale of life and love in a Depression-era traveling circus. 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. Jacob introduces us to Marlena, beautiful star of the equestrian act; to August, her charismatic but twisted husband (and the circus' animal trainer); and to Rosie, a seemingly untrainable elephant. 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.
