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Sara Gruen
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English
Ape Houseby Sara GruenISBN 0739328042 (0-7393-2804-2)
Softcover, Random House Large Print
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Flying Changesby Sara GruenISBN 0060790954 (0-06-079095-4)
Softcover, Harpercollins
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Riding Lessonsby Sara GruenISBN 0060580275 (0-06-058027-5)
Softcover, Harper Torch
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Water for Elephantsby Sara GruenISBN 1565125606 (1-56512-560-6)
Softcover, Algonquin Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Water for Elephants: Library Edition'Book summary:Jacob Jankowski says: "I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other." At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn't always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn't a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn't write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison.
Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob's life with this circus. Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself. The animals are mangy, underfed or fed rotten food, and abused. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the "menagerie" and all its ills. Uncle Al, the circus impresario, is a self-serving, venal creep who slaps people around because he can. August, the animal trainer, is a certified paranoid schizophrenic whose occasional flights into madness and brutality often have Jacob as their object. Jacob is the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass and as his reward he spends most of the novel beaten, broken, concussed, bleeding, swollen and hungover. He is the self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden, and... he falls in love with Marlena, crazy August's wife. Not his best idea.
The most interesting aspect of the book is all the circus lore that Gruen has so carefully researched. She has all the right vocabulary: grifters, roustabouts, workers, cooch tent, rubes, First of May, what the band plays when there's trouble, Jamaican ginger paralysis, life on a circus train, set-up and take-down, being run out of town by the "revenooers" or the cops, and losing all your hooch. There is one glorious passage about Marlena and Rosie, the bull elephant, that truly evokes the magic a circus can create. It is easy to see Marlena's and Rosie's pink sequins under the Big Top and to imagine their perfect choreography as they perform unbelievable stunts. The crowd loves it--and so will the reader. The ending is absolutely ludicrous and really quite lovely. --Valerie Ryan [via]
More editions of Water for Elephants:
- Water for Elephants: Library Edition: ISBN 1594132003 (1-59413-200-3)
Softcover, Large Print Pr - Water for Elephants: Library Edition: ISBN 1565124995 (1-56512-499-5)
Hardcover, Algonquin Books - Water for Elephants: ISBN 1741149819 (1-74114-981-9)
Softcover, Allen & Unwin - Water for Elephants: ISBN 0006391559 (0-00-639155-9)
Softcover, HarperCollins Publishers Limited - Water for Elephants UK B Fmt: ISBN 0340935464 (0-340-93546-4)
Softcover, Hodder General Publishing Division - Water for Elephants: ISBN 0340938056 (0-340-93805-6)
Softcover, Hodder Education - Water for Elephants: ISBN 0340962720 (0-340-96272-0)
Softcover, Hodder General Publishing Division - Water for Elephants: ISBN 0002007770 (0-00-200777-0)
Hardcover, HarperCollins Publishers Limited - Water for Elephants: Library Edition: ISBN 0786290277 (0-7862-9027-7)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr - Water for Elephants: ISBN 0340935286 (0-340-93528-6)
Hardcover, Hodder General Publishing Division - Water for Elephants: Library Edition: ISBN 1565125606 (1-56512-560-6)
Softcover, Algonquin Books
- Water for Elephants: Library Edition: ISBN 1594132003 (1-59413-200-3)
German
Alles Glück dieser Erdeby Sara GruenISBN 3442458889 (3-442-45888-9)
Softcover
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Das Licht der Weltby Sara GruenISBN 3442462304 (3-442-46230-4)
Softcover
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Spanish
Agua para Elefantes/ Water for Elephantsby Sara Gruen , Manu BerasteguiISBN 1603960066 (1-60396-006-6)
Softcover, Alfaguara
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