autobiography

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“I had confirmed my belief that I could walk into a cage of big cats and more importantly, walk back out again.”

Wild Animal Circus: True Tales From Carson & Barnes Circus by Dennis J. Younger

August 4, 2022 by GentleRain Leave a Comment

CBR14Bingo: Snakes (there are snakes in this book) Continuing my dive into circus animal trainer memoirs with this self-published look into working the big cat act at Carson & Barnes in 1977-1978. This is a very plainly written, minimally edited book that is basically a day by day journal of his time on the show and a few pages about him working at a roadside zoo type attraction in Florida afterwards. It was interesting in terms of the facts and his honesty about the mistreatment […]

“The Circus has a great obligation to the people of America.” (Irving Feld)

Tiger, Tiger: My 25 Years with the Big Cats by Charly Baumann

August 2, 2022 by GentleRain Leave a Comment

CBR14Bingo: Star (Charly clearly sees himself as a star, and he was) This was a pretty fast and straight forward autobiography of Charly Baumann’s twenty-five years of circus life. It’s not the type of autobiography where the author does a lot of introspection, but it’s an enjoyable read and a good look into European and American circus post-WWII and into the 1970s. His descriptions of his training methods and the long, difficult process of carefully training tigers was interesting. There are also a lot of […]

“Whatever the hardships involved in being connected with it, this was the circus; and it was pure magic.”

Circus Doctor by J.Y. Henderson (as told to Richard Taplinger)

July 28, 2022 by GentleRain 1 Comment

CBR14Bingo: Elephant (there are a bunch of elephants in this book) Circus Doctor is, as its straight forward title suggests, an autobiography of a circus veterinarian. At the time he wrote this book, J.Y. Henderson had been working for Ringling for ten years, and from some cursory Googling it looks like he ended up working there for over forty. You can tell from the book how caring and passionate he is about caring for the vast variety of animals under his care, so it makes sense […]

An entertaining and eye opening tour through Dave Grohl’s extraordinary life (so far)

The Storyteller by Dave Grohl

May 19, 2022 by TylerDFC 2 Comments

The new pseudo-autobiography, The Storyteller, from Foo Fighters frontman/Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl is not conventional. This makes sense since neither is its author. Rather than telling his life story in chronological order, the book is structured as a series of anecdotes that hit significant events mostly in the order they occurred. Whenever I am reading a biography I always dread the beginning chapters as the author goes into detail about their parents, family, and childhood. I tend to skim these parts because, for the most […]

Extra Reading March 2022

Batman: The Killing Joke by Christa Faust and Gary Phillips

The Big East: Inside the Most Entertaining and Influential Conference in College Basketball History by Dana O'Neil

In The Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero

The Banks by Roxane Gay, Ming Doyle (Illustrator)

One Night, New York by Lara Thompson

The Secret Lives of Married Women by Elissa Wald

Lost and Found in Harlem by Delia C. Pitts

Beautiful Little Fools by Jillian Cantor

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Scandal in Babylon by Barbara Hambly

Sadie by Courtney Summers

April 1, 2022 by Jake Leave a Comment

These are the books I finished in the month of March in which I didn’t have time or words to elaborate on… Batman: The Killing Joke *** Two of my favorites team up for a Batman prose novel? Yes! But the end result is just okay. Interestingly enough, I think both writers do a better job with the random Gothamites than they do with the Caped Crusader and his primary nemesis. You’re fine just reading Alan Moore’s legendary graphic novel. The Big East: Inside the […]

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends— It gives a lovely light!

Rapture and Melancholy: The Diaries of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Edna St. Vincent Millay, Daniel Mark Epstein (Editor)

March 15, 2022 by Pooja Leave a Comment

Starting in 1907 as a teenager, Edna St Vincent Millay began documenting her life in a series of diaries, ending in 1949. These diaries chart her early hopes and dreams, her rise to fame as one of the most prominent American contemporary poets, her farm life with her husband Eugen, and her struggles with alcohol and morphine addiction. I am not a reader of poetry – it simply doesn’t appeal to me terribly. Consequently my knowledge of all but the most well-known poets is a […]

Emmalita on But who ever really knows the experience of another?I've been burned by author recommendations so many times.
Emmalita on “Your body was numb to grief; perhaps you had felt it once, but you did not feel it anymore.”I'll send you another one if you need it later. The invitations do time out.
narfna on “Your body was numb to grief; perhaps you had felt it once, but you did not feel it anymore.”Well, I just clicked the link but it's blocked at my work, so. Sucky.
Emmalita on New Love and a Complete Bingo Board!Congratulations!
wicherwill on thank you to my friend EvinThe characters also don't really do the fantasy bits--they begrudgingly put up with the weird, which is why I was struggling with whether this counts...

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