Home > The Booklady Reviews The BookLady only reviews books she has read. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ AUGUST REVIEW SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME by Leif Enger Leif Enger, the author of Peace Like A River, has finally published his second novel. My fellow readers, I am happy to report that it was worth the wait, big time. Enger's story takes place in 1915, as the Twentieth Century is getting a toehold and the Old West is fading away. Those readers who already love westerns will be amply rewarded; everyone else, you'll regret it if you pass this one up. Enger has peopled his novel with a cast of rich and satisfying characters. You have an old guy, Glendon Hale, who builds fine river skiffs, but once built a reputation as a train robber and still has a bounty on his head for murder. Hale's mysterious past also includes a wife he abandoned shortly after their marriage many years ago and from whom he now seeks forgiveness. Then you have Monte Becket, a Minnesota farmer turned postal worker who's written a wildly successful shoot'em up novel, but has lost, and is desperately seeking, his voice to write a second novel. And lastly, you have aging ex-Pinkerton guard, Charles Siringo, now turned rogue bounty hunter seeking none other than Glendon Hale. Becket has fallen under Glendon Hale's spell. When Hale asks him to accompany him to Mexico to find his ex-wife, Becket agrees to go, telling his wife and son that he will be home in six weeks. His wife, Susannah, moved by Hale's goal of forgiveness, encourages him to go. Becket marvels at his wife's generosity. "Love is a strange fact-it hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things. It makes no sense at all." Hale and Becket set out by train, then continue by river skiff, and then, after an assault by a gang of no-good river rats, they travel on foot into a small town where they depart by automobile. At this point another character, Hood Roberts, a most beguiling young man, becomes part of the journey. This is where we hear a haunting voice (could be Woody Guthrie?) singing the book's title, So, Brave, Young, and Handsome, from the last verse of "The Cowboy's Lament." Enger has in fact, written a sort of Canterbury Tales for the Old West. There are tales aplenty and no matter how many times Beckett vows to return home, he finds himself unable to break away from the next story: fire, flood, a wild west show, robbery, patient wives, crooked gamblers. This novel should be read around a campfire on a clear night with the lowing of cattle in the background and the glitter of stars overhead. Enger's voice is pitch perfect and his grace of redemption is as diverse and surprising as his characters. There are twists and turns. There is cruelty and kindness, honor and shame, and above all, hope. Will Hale's ex-wife forgive him? Does Siringo ever get his man? Can Beckett find his voice for his next novel? Sorry, but if I told you, it would spoil the fun. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ROCK AND ROLL NEVER FORGETS by Deborah Grabien San Francisco writer Deb Grabien has done it again! Her new mystery series has just about everything for a great summer read and certainly enough to whet our appetites for more. JP Kinkaid is an aging, expatriate Brit rock star living in that City across the Bay. His life in the bright world of rock and roll is anchored by his ongoing and loving relationship with Bree, a most sensible and remarkably devoted woman. Grabien has written not just a murder mystery, but a story that takes the reader backstage with the rock band Blacklight. Under Grabien's deft pen, we come to know all the members of the band, not just as musicians, but as husbands, wives, lovers and friends of long standing. They have almost outlived the wildness of their youth, except it is their past that leads to murder. When the last scrap of evidence is in, everything points to Bree. JP Kinkaid as sleuth then takes center stage. What a pleasure to meet Bree and Kinkaid, an older in-love couple. Theirs is a love story of not just who-done-it suspense, but intimate domestic moments. With Grabien, nothing is wasted. Her own background in the world of music is strongly felt, as is her life as a caterer (now retired). But it is the music we hear most clearly and in this, the beginning of a new mystery series, Grabien doesn't miss a beat. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ FEBRUARY REVIEW POETS’ CORNER The One-And-Only Poetry Book For The Whole Family Compiled by: John Lithgow It’s not only good for you – It’s down-right fun! Well, it finally happened. The publishing business has done what the film industry has been doing for years. It’s saved the best books for the end of the year! If you are a parent and your child is introduced to poetry in our public or private schools, you owe it to yourself (thus avoiding the expected groans) and your children to buy this book. Lithgow has yanked the living world of poetry out of the death clutches of academia and returned it to the people for whom it was originally written. You might think about giving this book to your kids’ favorite English teacher, or donate a copy to the school library. John Lithgow, that skinny comedic actor who broke us up in The Third Rock From the Sun, has done what almost every high school English teacher has failed to do. He has breathed life, and dare I say it, excitement, into the world of P O E T R Y! And what makes Mr. Lithgow such an expert you might ask? Well, his father produced Shakespearean festivals in the State of Ohio and, to seal the deal, Lithgow has a poetry-reciting grandmother. In his opening remarks, Lithgow reminds us that poetry is and has always been a part of our lives. Every nursery rhyme, radio jingle, jump rope chant, limerick, and rap, is poetry. Those catchy lyrics? Yes, poetry. The beauty of this book is that you get to move through hundreds of years of English verse at your own pace. For myself, I started at the beginning and went straight through. What is your reward for finishing the whole thing? An accompanying CD with the selected poems read by some of the finest actors around is included with the price of the book. It’s a gas to go back and try reading along with the actor. For every person who has no idea what Geoffrey Chaucer was saying in Middle English as his Canterbury pilgrims told their tales, wonder no more! Mr. Lithgow has happily explained enough about the “raunchy” and “bawdy” stories to entice even the timid and fearful reader. He assures us that some of the tales include jokes about farts! Yes, dear readers, Chaucer was funny. He was also pithy, observant and groundbreaking in his use of the English language. Lithgow’s selections run the gamut, from Chaucer to Ginsberg, from Blake to Nash, and a host of others. You’ll find more than a few happy surprises. Each poet is introduced with a short bio, describing a bit about the poet and the time in which he or she wrote. It’s the kind of info we’d see on Entertainment Tonight, because, with few exceptions, these men and women fully intended to entertain. With that taken care of, Lithgow inserts a few of his favorite titles from the poet and then presents a poem. The poem is followed by a delightfully enlightening insight into what has just been read. Mind you, Lithgow does not try to tell you exactly what you are to get from the poem. Hurrah, for Lithgow. This is then followed by a quote from the poet and sometimes a second poem (we can thus guess who are Lithgow’s favorites). What makes the book worthwhile is not only Lithgow’s love of his subject, but his honesty in dealing with its difficulty as well as its beauty. For those of us who read and write poetry, The Poets’ Corner has been a long time coming. I can’t say when I’ve been so excited about any book. Lithgow makes us see the strength of our English language in all its shapes, colors, sounds and rhythms. And if he thinks what he has written might be insufficient, he often adds a website where more of the poet’s work can be found and often heard, sometimes in the poets’ own voices. The poems selected may be remembered by many with some distaste, but read anew, under the gentle prodding of John Lithgow, you may read them as the poets intended, words meant to fire your imagination, tickle your funny bone, bend your heart, touch your soul. As Lithgow says himself, “If the poems are new to you, grab on to them, wrestle with them, fall in love with them, make them a part of you.” ______________________________________________________________________________________________ 2007 DECEMBER REVIEW Revolution is Not a Dinner Party By Ying Chang Compestine Ms. Compestine will be at Clayton Books tonight 11/28 at 7:00 to discuss this book "A revolution is not a dinner party,. . . . .A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another." Mao Zedong Ying Chang Compestine's title of her first novel is nothing short of brilliant irony. Ms. Compestine, like her protagonist, Ling, survived Mao's Cultural Revolution (a time marked by constant hunger) to become the author of three cookbooks and an authority on Chinese cooking and culture. It's hard to pick a place to begin in recommending this book. First of all, it is a "cross-over" novel, which means a book for both young adults (10 yrs. and up) and general readership. I cannot think of a better book to be read by everyone in the family. Like it or not, China and all things Chinese, is a big part of our lives and will be an even larger part of our children's lives. This is as fine a start as any to better understand China's recent past. The story begins in 1972 and ends shortly after Mao's death in 1976. Ling is almost nine years old in 1972, and it is through her eyes that we experience her fear and terror when, "Danger began knocking on doors all over China." Ling is a bright and vivacious only child. She is the great joy of an easy-going father and the consternation of a perfectionist mother. The family lives in a hospital compound where her father practices Western surgery and her mother practices traditional Eastern medicine. The tie-in to our Bay Area is a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge given to her father by his teacher, a visiting American doctor. It is her father's hope that some day Ling will travel to see the Golden Gate Bridge. The picture of the bridge, which would be perceived as a bourgeois symbol to the marauding Red Guard, is finally hidden behind Mao's picture on their mantle. When Ling's parents burn letters, old photographs and other family mementos, the hidden picture of the Golden Gate Bridge becomes the their icon of resistance. Ling's creator not only came to America, but on a clear day, when coming through the Caldecott Tunnel from her home in Lafayette, she can now almost reach out and touch the Golden Gate Bridge. Compestine tells Ling's story in language both youthfully direct and emotionally honest. In her father's eyes, Ling could do no wrong. With her mother, it was different: "I believed Mother was unhappy with me because she had never wanted to have a daughter." She wishes her mother loved her "the way I was, like Father did." When Ling's father is taken away by the Red Guard as an enemy of the people, we remember her worry: "How could I learn every one of Mother's rules so I wouldn't upset her?" Mother and daughter must build a relationship to survive. In the ensuing four years, Ling experiences loss, hunger, betrayal, fear and confusion, all topics worth generating lively family discussions. The BookLady recommends:after each member of your family has read the novel, go out to your favorite Chinese restaurant and celebrate. Talk about what is familiar in the story, what is surprising, or how you might have reacted if it had been your family. Go out and celebrate your family, celebrate your freedom. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ NOVEMBER REVIEW The Legend of Fire Horse Woman By Jean Wakatsuki Houston If Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's name rings a bell, it is usually connected with her memoir, Farewell to Manzanar, recounting the years spent in the Japanese internment at Manzanar, in the Owen's Valley in California. Houston returns to the setting of Manzanar in The Legend of Fire Horse Woman, but this time draws more deeply on its history, spinning a tale with the fabric of both Japanese and Paiute Americans who have left their imprint on the land now operated as a National Park. The Legend of Fire Horse Woman, takes us back to Japan at the turn of the 20th Century, where we meet Sayo, an orphan, who becomes a "picture bride," married by proxy in Japan and sent to her Japanese husband in the United States. This is Sayo's first of many relocations and her story of immigration is paralleled with the story of her, and her family's, internment at Manzanar some forty years later. Houston's story is compelling on many levels. The story of Sayo's independent spirit in the face of a male dominated Japanese culture would have been enough to hold any reader's attention, but Houston builds on Sayo's journey by including other women taking the same risky voyage to a very uncertain future. At the same time we learn about the plight of Sayo and many of the other picture brides, we also experience prison life at Manzanar. Houston never falters in her telling. She carries the reader seamlessly between the two sagas as we watch Sayo, her daughter Hana, and her granddaughters Terri and Carmen acclimate to their new life. It is the early history of Sayo in California that first captures our interest. What became of her new husband and their marriage is just the beginning of Sayo's story. How she coped in a very male world is at the heart of the novel. She found the courage to love again, only to have another historical event cause the loss of that relationship. The spirit of the Japanese is not the only one existing at Manzanar. The history of the Paiute Indians who also lived and died in the same foothills of the Sierra becomes increasingly important. The "Fire Horse" spirit that Sayo embodies is passed on to her daughter Hana and her granddaughter Terri. They are Houston's major players. In Manzanar, under the watchful eyes of armed guards, each of them confronts the forces that seem to dictate their lives. Secrets are hard to hold when there is little room for privacy among hundreds of other detainees living in very close quarters. It is not until almost the end of the book before Sayo's hidden life is revealed. By that time, we have seen Hana deal with a loveless marriage (arranged at a very young age by her mother) and Terri has moved into young womanhood. Mother and daughter have begun to see each other beyond their unhappy past, but neither can imagine what their beloved Sayosan still has not told them about her own past and the impact it will have on them. Houston's complex tale is set within a history that has only recently been acknowledged. To learn more about Manzanar, go to: http://www.nps.gov/manz/historyculture/index.htm ______________________________________________________________________________________________ SEPTEMBER REVIEW Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead I wrote this review, pc in hand, only three days before we celebrated the 4th of July; therefore, writing a review of a book about our Civil War, or any war, seemed sadly appropriate. Robert Olmstead has given us a little literary gem in Coal Black Horse, the tale of fourteen-year-old Robey Childs, who has been sent by his mother to go to the battlefield and bring his father home. The tone and content of Olmstead's story is almost mystical. Robey's mother, left to run the farm while his father is gone to soldiering, has a premonition and tells her son, "Thomas Jackson has died. It is now over." Thomas Jackson is better known to us as Stonewall Jackson, a pivotal leader of the Confederacy. She further tells Robey, "'There's no sense continuing.' She paused and sought words to fashion her thoughts. 'This was a mistake a long time before we knew it, but a mistake nonetheless. Go and find your father and bring him back to his home.'" The battlefield Robey must reach is Gettysburg. Rachel Childs sends her son out protected by her advice -- he is not to trust anyone on his journey -- and her gift -- he is to wear, at the appropriate time, the jacket she has sewn with one side gray and the other blue. Robey is both submissive and rebellious. He doesn't question his mother's command to bring his father home, but when, early on his journey, he realizes his own farm horse is not up to the task, he breaks with his mother by trusting the word of another and accepting the loan of two .44 Army Colts and a coal black horse. How important is the horse? Important enough to bear the title of the book. "It was coal black, stood sixteen hands, and it was clear to see the animal suffered no lack of self-possession." Robey's response upon seeing the animal is immediate, "That is an uncommon horse." The horse is a Hanovarian with German roots and bred for the battlefield. Although Olmstead has not named the animal, what comes to mind with no effort is Bucephalus, the near mythic mount and companion of the young Alexander the Great. With the horse, Robey rides with purpose and growing confidence. When he loses the horse through trickery and a gunshot wound, his journey is filled with danger, death and deceit. When he and the horse are reunited, the search for his father intensifies. "Then he urged the horse on and it hesitated before responding as if to acknowledge that its rider had learned some valuable lesson and should now be rewarded for such." How do they know where to go? "In some places, the horse was at a loss how to proceed through the wild and dreary land but figured its path on the move and pursued it with abandon." And pursue it they do. Before the father is found, what they and we see are some of the most horrific and terrifying scenes ever described. We see nothing heroic. This is the aftermath of Gettysburg. The horse carries Robey past the dead and bloated, the dying and suffering, the once human and beasts of burden. This is the world that Robey must conquer and become a part of before he can reach his father. This is a thin volume, not 220 pages. I do not like to retell a story in my reviews, but even in this short novel there is much I have not written. A young girl, abused and traveling into her own treacherous adulthood, is part of Robey's journey and he hers. They cannot disconnect; and we know their lives are as good as yoked, no matter how long it takes. Robey finds his father alive, but just barely. The coal black horse carries them all home - the girl, the son and the father who is now both buried and alive in his son's heart It seems to me that the strength of a good story is not only its ability to grab your interest, but also its ability to touch your mind, not only to vividly see the world within the book, but to make you think about how you see the world outside its pages. This book does both. Its relevance on the eve of the 4th of July, as our sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, do battle in the middle of a civil war far from Gettysburg, should give us pause for more than thought. Where are the coal black horses when we need them? ______________________________________________________________________________________________ AUGUST REVIEW There's An Opossum in My Backyard by Gary Bogue, illustrated by Chuck Todd Everybody who lives within the foothills of Mt. Diablo has lived through Gary Bogue's newest book about opossums, those funny looking marsupials we see in our own backyards. Unlike the author's previous book, The Raccoon Next Door: Creatures of the Urban Wilderness, a self-help book for homeowners in their never-ending struggle to keep their garbage cans upright in the presence of raccoons, There's An Opossum In My Backyard is a picture book to be loved by children and adults. From the moment a baby opossum falls off her mother's back while walking along a fence and lands in the backyard of the Green family, we are once again in Bogue territory. Chuck Todd's illustrations, both striking and humorous, capture the text and heart of Bogue's story. We see the plight of the abandoned baby opossum through her own eyes: in the glare of oncoming headlights, the fearsome predatory swoop of an owl and the ferocious bearing of the family dog protecting his bowl of food. Bogue's gift for teaching through storytelling is in full swing in this book. It is a book in need of a lap. When youngsters see the cover and recognize the animal on it, they will clamor to have the book read aloud. And Chuck Todd's cover says it all. Holding the book, we see the opossum looking straight at us from the branch of a tree, and within the curve of her tail we see the Green family, behind closed sliding glass doors, staring out at the opossum with every possible expression on their faces. A remarkable coexistence is about to happen. What you have here is everything you ever wanted to know about opossums, but were afraid to ask. It is the kind of picture book that gives the out loud reader plenty of room to pause in the story, rest the book for a moment, and engage the young listeners in comments and questions. There's An Opossum In My Backyard is educational without using a sledgehammer. Gary Bogue would never do that. He has as much respect for his reader as he does for the creatures he describes in this wonderful book. Bogue's respect for his subject matter is borne out by the fact that the abandoned Opossum is never personified or given a cutesy name, but remains her own distinct, odd little self. This engaging creature may live among humans, but she remains, "little opossum." Signed copies of There's an Opossum in My Backyard are available at the store. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ JULY REVIEW by Don DeLillo In three months, it will have been six years since 9/11. The reading public has, since that ominous day in American history, been plowed under with books of explanation, lamentation, condemnation and just about everything else authors of nonfiction could think of. Novelists have been a little slower to respond, allowing themselves time to live in the aftermath of such devastation before attempting a telling of anything with 9/11 at its core. Prior to DeLillo's new novel, Falling Man, we had McEwan's, Saturday, Beigbeder's, Windows on the World, and Foer's, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. None of them come close to Falling Man. I was immediately drawn to the title by the absence of "The" in front of "Falling Man." This is not a book about any one particular person who fell out of the second tower, although that is the book's final image. Nor is it only about the performance artist (actually called, "Falling Man") who dangles from bridges, ledges and steeples, giving his life both public notoriety and nuisance value before finally falling to his death. In the simplest terms, this is a book about separation. Everyone and everything that falls separates from something. We meet DeLillo's protagonist, Keith Neudecker, just after the the towers have fallen. He is hurt and dazed, walking away from the scene and not yet sure where he is going. "He tried to tell himself he was alive, but the idea was too obscure to take hold." The novel follows Keith's ambivalent return to his estranged wife, Lianne, and his son, Justin, for a period of almost a year. DeLillo records with insight and depth how the events of 9/11 affect these people, and those close to them: Lianne's aging mother and her German lover; Justin and his playmates who search the skies for more planes and Ben Lawton; Keith's brief lover, Florence, who also survived the falling buildings, and an old poker buddy, Terry Cheng. Without going into the plot or giving away any of the storyline, it is enough to know that DeLillo gets to the heart of what we were all feeling from the time we watched the planes crash into the buildings over and over again until the moment we understood that nothing would ever be the same. The characters are in a constant state of flux as they move in and out of intimacy. They find themselves living in doubt, questioning everything. While walking with his son to meet his wife, Keith thinks about Florence and the end of their relationship, a relationship in which he was "double in himself, coming and going, the walks across the park and back, the deep shared self, down through the smoke, and then here again to safety and family, to the implications of one's conduct." Falling Man is a thoughtful, dynamic and haunting book. Its story will stay with you long after you've finished, which makes it worth reading more than once. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ MAY REVIEW She Got Up Off the Couch by Haven Kimmel Okay, I admit it - I bought this book because I could not resist the cover picture of a very young Haven Kimmel. The photograph on the now available trade paper copy of her book may be smaller, but it's just as cute. Never having read Kimmel's earlier book, A Girl Named Zippy, I was totally unprepared for the outrageously funny and piercingly tender moments of immense reading pleasure. The "she" who got off the couch was Kimmel's mother, all two hundred plus pounds of her. Kimmel's family is the square peg within the round holes of Moorland, Indiana, a close-knit, extremely normal community of 300 (well, as normal as a community of 300 people can be). It is Kimmel's mother who rounds off some of her family's edges. Kimmel's prose is as hard to resist as her cover photo. She loves her family and grows to see them as they truly are. She is the youngest (by ten years) of three children. Photographs of family and friends grace the first pages of each chapter. She uses everything to reel us in. In the end, we are most swayed by her words describing her beloveds with all the fierce sweetness of youth. An example is when she writes of her much older brother: He was the great physical thing in the world, a wonder like Niagara Falls if Niagara Falls was your brother. Kimmel's book is a memoir of remarkable originality and charm; it's well worth the read. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ APRIL REVIEW Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood If you have never read Margaret Atwood, Moral Disorder is as fine a place to start as any. On the other hand, if you are already an Atwood fan, this book should be at the top of your "must read" list. Moral Disorder is made up of eleven short stories, all with the same central character, Nell. The settings are urban, rural, suburban, mountainous and all Canadian. The collection begins with a scene from Nell's less than idyllic marriage. We meet her again, at age ten, knitting a layette for her soon to be born baby sister. The interwoven stories move us from the 1930's to today, culminating with the last two stories, each a heart-breakingly superb account of the death of her parents. Atwood, through the telling of almost photographic tales, has created for Nell, a full and complex life. Is it a novel or a collection of short stories? A good question. The sister for whom she knitted the layette follows Nell throughout the book. One story takes place when the sisters go to visit their elderly mother. Atwood's storytelling puts the reader in the back seat eavesdropping as the younger sister drives. In the hands of a lesser writer, the poignant and thoughtful musings of mature sisters, ready to be honest with one another, might have turned saccharin. But here, their heartfelt conversation is constantly and hilariously shot through with the younger sister's acerbic takes on every SOB driver on the road, never skipping a beat before slipping back into the conversation. It is sharp, crass and emotionally rich all at once. Atwood steers the reader from laugh-out-loud to deeply moved, and you're tempted to go back and read it again just to see how she does it. If you are pressed for time, read Moral Disorder, one story at a time. It almost doesn't matter in which order they are read. Or read this slim volume in one sitting. Either way, by the time you close the book for good, you will know and care about Nell, her family, her friends, her enemies. Atwood's insight into human behavior and her eye for its surrounding detail make these stories accessible, intimate and surprisingly familiar. Nell's life touches our own with sufficient compassion for all. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ MARCH REVIEW Silver Lies by Ann Parker Looking for a good mystery that will take you back to the days when the west was wooly and wild? Look no more. Ann Parker has written a rip-roaring tale of greed, deception, betrayal and murder that takes place in the late 1870's in Leadville, Colorado. Leadville was, at the time of the story, the Denver wannabe that attracted silver miners, wayward women, crooked bankers, reformed and not-so-reformed counterfeiters, women of shadowy pasts, a reverend of questionable background and our heroine, Inez, abandoned wife and owner/operator of the Silver Queen saloon, serving booze, games of chance and Irish stew. The west was a beacon for folks escaping their pasts to forge new identities, and Parker's characters are never quite who they seem to be. Leadville is a city where the law can be purchased as easily as loose women, where living an upright life is an uphill endeavor. When Joe Rose, a well-liked local assayer turns up brutally murdered in the alley behind the Silver Queen, Inez makes it her business to find out who killed her friend and left his wife and young son penniless. Inez is no slouch as a sleuth, but her efforts almost cost her her life. The body count climbs right up to the last twist and turn of the plot. Parker has written a well-paced mystery with characters to care about. We are rewarded with a fun read and a better understanding of what it was like when Colorado was booming and men and women were mining for more than silver. ______________________________________________________________________________________________ FEBRUARY REVIEW Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen What do a circus, an elephant, a beautiful trick-rider and a soon to be veterinarian have in common? Love. Sara Gruen has written a fast paced romantic novel of the 1930's that is not to be missed. Gruen begins her story with protagonist Jacob Jankowski at age 90+. She moves us effortlessly between Jacob's incredibly barren wheelchair existence in an assisted living facility and memories of his circus life which began with the death of his parents when he was twenty-three. Gruen's characterization of Jacob at the end of his life, in the assisted living facility, is nothing short of spectacular. Those who have any familiarity with such facilities will be painfully touched by the clarity and terrible honesty of her depiction. Jacob's memories of his past, on the other hand, are filled with the sights and sounds of circus life. They are alive with the passion for the woman he loved, the friends he made and defended, and the animals he tended, especially Rosie the elephant. Rosie and Jacob have a special bond and Gruen's vivid closeups of elephant behavior make us see these animal giants in an engaging new light. The small fly-by-night circuses that dotted America's landscape from the end of the 19th Century through the depression years of the 20th are up and running in Water for Elephants. Sara Gruen has placed herself and the reader in the center of the big top.  I'd bet my last bag of roasted peanuts that you'll agree, this story is worth the price of admission. Address: 5433 Clayton Road, Suite D, Clayton, CA 94517 Phone: (925) 673-3325 Email: joelharris@aol.com