I've always found myself unusually drawn to the unusual. This includes, to a great degree, circus folk. So, when I saw a single copy of American Sideshow in the theatre section at the bookstore I immediately honed in. This book is a treasure chest of information about sideshow performers throughout America's history that will never leave my personal library.

American Sideshow gives us short vignettes on, easily, more than a hundred different midway "freaks". But don't let the length of these biographies, most about a page long, fool you into thinking the information is insignificant.

Where else would you find personal and professional information on Fanny Mills, The Ohio Big Foot Girl, who was earning $150 a week in the 1880's. That's 100 yrs before I was making $150 a week at my first job and feeling rich!

And look at the story of Isaac W. Sprague, The Original Thin Man. Born in 1841 he was consistantly loosing weight from the age of 12. He ate regularly and well but was wasting away, dumbfounding his doctors. He worked for his father as a shoemaker until his parents death at which time he began working at a grocery. Once this work became too difficult (he was only in his 20's) he was lucky enough to be offered a job with a sideshow. Here he was making $80/wk in the 1860's. He took a wife and had a family. His condition was finally diagnosed as extreme progressive muscular atrophy. Mr. Sprague's story, unfortunately, ends very much the way that is often assumed of many sideshow performers.

The same, gladly, can't be said for Dick Brisben, The Penguin Boy who may well still be alive and kicking, at least at the time this book was written. Born in the 1940's with feet but no legs and hands but basically no arms, Brisben began his career with the sideshows in 1960. He had been on wellfare until Ward Hall invited him to join his show. The Penquin Boy stayed with Hall for 27 years after which he was able to purchase a home in southern California.

This book contains so many amazing stories about people who could easily have lived lives as "burdens" to society and family but instead took what they had and used it to their advantages.

Marc Hartzman as divided this book into 3 sections. It begins with the "Golden Age" which encompasses 1830's-early 1900's. This was the heyday of Barnum & Bailey. It continues on to the "Silver Age" with the introduction of the Ringling Brothers and eventual downfall of the sideshow as it was known. The final section covers the "Modern Age", the new sideshows.

For me, the final section is the only failing in this book. I see the old-time performers as people who found themselves in unusual circumstances entertaining an audience. As for the modern performers, they are people putting themselves in unusual situations to entertain.

I can't recommend this book enough to anyone with even the slightest interest in this subject. I would also reccommend it to creative writers looking for springboard material.

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I'm not usually a fan of "artsy" books. My thought tends to be "if they need an artsy gimmick the writing is probably lacking".

After reading Women's World by Graham Rawle I will not let that keep me away again!

Written entirely with clippings from vintage 1960's women's magazines, the "artsy gimmick" of this book is not only impressive, it is necessary to the voice of Norma (Fontaine) Little who narrates this incredibly original book.

Women's World starts as a humorous character study of Norma who lives with her maid/mother and her brother/...in 1960's Great Britain.

How would one know how to be a lady without the women's magazines guiding her through fashion, hairstyles, poise and etiquette?

Clearly eccentric, Norma rarely leaves the house. But when she ventures out on a long overdue job interview she meets up with a curious man, Mr. Hands, who not only stares at her beauty, as others are want to do, but is bold enough to approach her with a proposition too intriguing for her to pass up.

As Norma prepares for her rendezvous with Mr. Hands, her brother Roy is fresh on the heels of a romance like none he ever thought possible.

Mr Rawle's character study moves smoothly into a mystery that reveals one twist after another as Norma and her brother must come to terms with their relationship.

There is so much more to this story but to say any more would give away too much.

This is the most innovative book I have read and seen. Any aspiring artist or writer can only be inspired by this book.

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And you thought death was boring!

What do you want to do with your death? Who knew we would still have such a wide variety of career choices? In Stiff, Mary Roach educates us on all the possibilities.

Interested in having plastic surgery? It costs the cadaver nothing!

Ever wanted to be a car crash test dummy? It’s not too late!

Join law enforcement and commune with nature working on the infamous body farm.

Speaking of nature, how about giving back to the environment as compost? You can do it! No previous experience required!

All these and many more options await you in Stiff.
Written in a conversational tone for the layperson, Roach asks all the questions you would want to ask but would feel stupid doing so. She asks no matter how silly and, yes, in the end this makes for a very entertaining read.