Water for Elephants Resources: Related Adult Fiction & Nonfiction
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Adult Fiction
Circus
Circus in Winter, by Cathy Day (2004) A series of short stories revolving around the Great Porter Circus and a small town in Indiana where townspeople and circus folk meet and mingle.
Final Confessions of Mabel Stark, by Robert Hough (2003) Fictional account of a real person – Mabel Stark – the first female tiger trainer in circus history. Stark worked for Ringling Brothers in the 1920’s; dressed in white leather and often wrestled with 500-pound tigers, before modern theories in animal behavior and training methods were avilable.
The Aerialist, by Richard Schmitt (2000) Gary – a jobless drifter – drifts into a circus, and signs up as a “bullhand” (one who scoops up after the elephants). Through Gary’s narration we are invited into the funny, sometimes violent, many times strange world of the traveling circus.
Blood and Circuses: A Phryne Fisher Mystery, by Kerry Greenwood (1994) Phryne Fisher mysteries are a hoot and a half – and this time Phryne winds us going undercover to investigate some strange and dangerous goings on at Farrell’s Circus.
Metropolis: a novel by Elizabeth Gaffney. Random House, (2005) Following a fire in P.T. Barnum's circus stable, a young German immigrant becomes caught up in New York's criminal underworld while falling in love with an Irish girl, as he becomes the target of a city-wide arson investigation.
Masters of illusion : a novel of the Connecticut circus fire by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith. Warner Books, 1994 Margie Potter was only six months old on the day her mother took her to the circus; her mother perished, and Maggie herself bears livid scars on her back. Having spent her youth repressing her memories and burying herself in books, Margie marries an intense fireman, Charlie O''Neill, who is singularly obsessed with the fire and determined to find the arsonist whom he is certain set the blaze.
The Depression
Waterborne, by Bruce Murkoff (2004) This novel follows three main characters whose lives come together at the site of the building of Boulder Dam during the Great Depression. A Steinbeck-like saga with elements of a thriller, romance and social critique.
Hidden Places, by Lynn N. Austin (2001) If you like “Christian fiction” this is one of the better titles by Ms. Austin. Eliza Rose, a widow and mother of 3 young children, struggles to make ends meet during the Great Depression by running the family orchard. Characters are quirky and well-drawn.
Sea Glass, by Anita Shreve (2002) Set in 1920’s New Hampshire just after the great stock market crash, this book follows Honora and Sexton Beecher. Sexton looses everything he has in the crash and tries his hand working at the local mill – where he must deal with incredibly low pay and brutal working conditions.
Tobacco Road, by Erskine Caldwell (1995) The depression and its effect on Georgia sharecroppers.
Aging
The Sea, by John Banville Following the death of his wife, Max Morden retreats to the seaside town of his childhood summers, where his own life becomes inextricably entwined with the members of the vacationing Grace family. Banville won the 2005 Book Prize for Literature for his efforts in The Sea.
Floor of the Sky, by Pamela Carter Joern Set in the Nebraska Sandhills, this novel is about an aging widow on the verge of losing her family's ranch and her sixteen-year old pregnant granddaughter who visits her for the summer.
The Final Solution, by Michael Chabon An eighty-nine-year-old former detective in rural England becomes involved with a young refugee from Nazi Germany whose sole companion, an African grey parrot, spews out a series of numbers that could hold the key to a dangerous secret.
Lemon Table, by Julian Barnes In a collection of 11 intricately crafted short stories, Barnes examines the peculiarities of age: the baffling amalgam of memories sharp and vague, the recognition that one has clung to fantasies to cushion the rough ride of existence, the strength derived from finally accepting one’s self versus the sorrow of watching one’s allure and energy fade.
Trains
Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie If you like your railway travel opulent and luxurious and if you like classic mysteries, this is the book for you. International passengers traveling from Istanbul to Paris on board the Orient Express are involved in a murder. Hercule Poirot investigates, but the train ride and the train itself are also major characters.
On the Wrong Track, by Steve Hockensmith (2007) Hired to guard the Pacific Express during a trip to San Francisco, crime-solving cowboy sleuths Gustav "Old Red" Amlingmeyer and his brother, "Big Red," deal with a scheming gang of outlaws and a killer hiding among the train's passengers.
Parallel Lies, by Ridley Pearson A grieving man's mission is to bring down the railroad company he holds responsible for his wife and children's deaths--no matter who else dies in the process. A former cop, now working with the National Transportation Safety Board, will stop at nothing to catch the perpetrator. The lines of good and evil become blurred in this cat-and-mouse game.
Christmas Train, by David Baldacci Tom Langdon, a weary and cash-strapped journalist, is banned from flying when a particularly thorough airport security search causes him to lose his cool. Now, he must take the train if he has any chance of arriving in Los Angeles in time for Christmas with his girlfriend.
Elephants
The White Bone - Barbara Gowdy "This marvelous and melancholy novel is told entirely from the points of view and, indeed, from within the cosmology of a number of African elephants who are facing extinction thanks to the depredations of ivory hunters."
Related Adult NonFiction
The Circus
The circus fire : a true story by Stewart O'Nan. Doubleday, 2000 A non-fiction account of the legendary Ringling Brothers Circus fire in Hartford, Conn. on July 6, 1944 that killed 167 people, mostly women and children, and injured hundreds more. Acclaimed author O'Nan describes the tragedy, the individual stories, the aftermath, and separates the facts, the rumors and the legends surrounding this horrific event.
The American circus: an illustrated history / John Culhane. New York : Holt, 1989 A vivid re-creation of 200 years of life under the big top told in pictures.
The circus age : culture and society under the American big top / Janet M. Davis. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 2002 When the circus came to town in the early 20th century, everyday activities came to a stop. Businesses and schools closed so that everyone could attend the big show. In this engaging book, the author relates the impact of the circus on American culture, society and entertainment.
The circus kings; our Ringling family story / Henry Ringling North and Alden Hatch. Drawings by Allene Gaty Hatch. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1960 This is the story of the circus family, the seven outrageous brothers, and how their circus grew to become an American institution. Henry North chronicled his family's story in 1960 with Alden Hatch. The New York Times Book Review described the book as an "intimate documentary of a restless, quarreling, affectionate, often vulgar, innately genteel, greedy and generous, tricky but honest, vividly imaginative clan."
The Depression
Brother, can you spare a dime? : the great depression, 1929-1933 / Milton Meltzer ; illustrated with contemporary prints & photos. New York : Knopf, 1969. Personal accounts of everyday people affected by the Depression. Songs, interviews, reprints from magazines and newspapers bring the economic destruction of the Depression to life. Part of the Library of American History series.
The forgotten man : a new history of the Great Depression / Amity Shlaes. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007. Economic and political history written with entertaining vignettes of individual stories, insightful portraits, with their revealing facts and anecdotes make good reading.
Hard times; an oral history of the great depression by Studs Terkel. New York, Pantheon Books, 1970. In this unique re-creation of one of the most dramatic periods in modern American history, Studs Terkel recaptures the Great Depression of the 1930s in all its complexity in this classic account. Terkel shows how the Depression affected the lives of those who experienced it firsthand, with stories of people who stayed rich and the people who faced destitution in the 1930’s.
Elephants
When elephants paint : the quest of two Russian artists to save the elephants of Thailand / Komar and Melamid with Mia Fineman ; introduction by Dave Eggers ; photographs by Jason Schmidt. New York : Harpercollins, 2000. An art school for elephants? Selling the elephant “artwork” to raise money to properly care for endangered Thai elephants? Is this idea possible? Is this ethical? Find out more and judge for yourself.
Love, war, and circuses : the age-old relationship between elephants and humans / Eric Scigliano. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 2002. Scigliano describes the 4,000 year old connection between man and beast. He nicely balances his story using anecdotes from science and history, personal experience and research.
Freaks
Title Sideshow U.S.A : freaks and the American cultural imagination / Rachel Adams. Publication info. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Resource Archive for past RARI selections