Love A Book – June book Intro – Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

It is with great pleasure that I declare the Love A Book reading group open *fnar, fnar*

Welcome along. This month’s book is Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

Ten copies have been sent out to the lucky winners of the Appliances Online sponsor giveaway. If you want to join in though, there is still plenty of time for you to grab a copy from your library, good old fashioned bookshop, readitswapit, Greenmetropolis, supermarket or direct from Amazon.

 

So what’s the book about?

As a young man, Jacob Jankowski was tossed by fate onto a rickety train that was home to the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. It was the early part of the great Depression, and for Jacob, now ninety, the circus world he remembers was both his salvation and a living hell. A veterinary student just shy of a degree, he was put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie.

It was there that he met Marlena, the beautiful equestrian star married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. And he met Rosie, an untrainable elephant who was the great gray hope for this third-rate traveling show. The bond that grew among this unlikely trio was one of love and trust, and, ultimately, it was their only hope for survival.

The author…

I was surprised to read that Sara Gruen, originally wrote the book as part of NaNoWriMo, which I know a few of our Twitter friends participate in. How exciting that such an event can see a best selling novel evolve, and also a blockbuster movie. Sara’s bio says that she moved to America from Canada in 1999 for a technical writing job, she started writing fiction after she was made redundant 2 years later.  Sara is a devoted animal lover and her books focus on the relationship humans have with animals in various guises, be it horses, elephants or apes.

I always like to read the book before seeing the film, so I can’t wait to get stuck into this.

There is an excerpt from the book on Sara’s website if you would like to whet your appetite.

I look forward to catching up with everyone at the end of the month to see what you all thought.