Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

One of my favourite sayings is ‘Too many freaks, not enough circuses’, and both are abundant in this tale of the travelling American circuses of the 30s. This book seems like it would have written itself – lions, tigers, carnies, dwarves and bearded ladies travelling through post-war America on a rickety old train lorded over by a schizophrenic ringmaster and a villanous boss, with obligatory love story and not so commonplace murderous elephant – and I feel like the author herself shouldn’t get too much of the credit, as the writing is plain and the story is the star.

It’s no surprise that the movie version of this book is about to hit screens, as reading it you actually got the sense of almost watching the action (ok so perhaps I do need to give Gruen some credit). A perfectly pleasing mid-week read.