Water for Elephants

Rachel recommended this book to me and the only hesitation I had going in is that I know a number of women who have read this book and liked it and zero men who have read it period. I didn't want to be diving in to some type of "Twilight" females-only love story. Fortunately, this book can be read by both sexes and enjoyed.

Water for Elephants is about a 90-year old man remembering his young days in the depression era working for the circus. I've never really read anything about the circus before so it was actually quite intriguing to think about life as a performer. It made me think what it would be like today working on some type of concert tour. Set up every day, do the show, take down and get on the bus (or train in the book's case) to move on to the next city. The author noted that many of the subplots and events in the books were true stories that have happened on various circus tours, such as an elephant drinking all of the lemonade that was to be sold the the patrons during the show.

Even after reading the book I'm amazed during that time period (or even today for that matter) that so many animals: bears, lions, panthers, giraffes, elephants, etc. could somehow be kept under lock and key and transported all over the country like that. It would take serious trust with the animals to get in some of those cages.

I would recommend this book to anybody who wants an easy, semi-nonthinking read if that makes sense. Most books I usually get about half way through and get so into it that I stay up late finishing the second half in one night. That didn't happen with this book; just an even-keeled, you kind of know what's coming but don't type ride. There are some racy parts for anybody that would want some advanced notice, those parts are pretty minor and probably also true of those times.