Water for Elephants
A Novel
- Themes
- Depression-era hardship, Trust and love, Human-animal bonds
Who it’s for
- Readers drawn to Depression-era circus settings and animal stories
- Readers interested in bonds of trust among circus outsiders
Where it sits
How strongly BookFrontier reads the book as belonging to each subject.
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Over 10,000,000 copies in print worldwide
#1 New York Times Bestseller
A Los Angeles Times Bestseller
A Wall Street Journal Bestseller
A Newsday Favorite Book of 2006
A USA Today Bestseller
A Major Motion Picture starring Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, and Christoph Waltz
Jacob Janowski’s luck had run out--orphaned and penniless, he had no direction until he landed on a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.
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A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It was the Great Depression and for Jacob the circus was both his salvation and a living hell. There he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but brutal animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this group of misfits was one of love and trust, and ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.
Publisher details
Publisher categories
- Historical Fiction
- 20th-Century Historical Romance
- Coming-of-Age
- Authors
- Sara Gruen
- Publisher
- Algonquin Books
- Published
- May 1, 2007
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Historical Fiction