Books about Elephant from Amazon.com

Jacob Jankowski says: "I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other." At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn't always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn't a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn't write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison.

Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob's life with this circus. Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself. The animals are mangy, underfed or fed rotten food, and abused. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the "menagerie" and all its ills. Uncle Al, the circus impresario, is a self-serving, venal creep who slaps people around because he can. August, the animal trainer, is a certified paranoid schizophrenic whose occasional flights into madness and brutality often have Jacob as their object. Jacob is the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass and as his reward he spends most of the novel beaten, broken, concussed, bleeding, swollen and hungover. He is the self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden, and... he falls in love with Marlena, crazy August's wife. Not his best idea.

The most interesting aspect of the book is all the circus lore that Gruen has so carefully researched. She has all the right vocabulary: grifters, roustabouts, workers, cooch tent, rubes, First of May, what the band plays when there's trouble, Jamaican ginger paralysis, life on a circus train, set-up and take-down, being run out of town by the "revenooers" or the cops, and losing all your hooch. There is one glorious passage about Marlena and Rosie, the bull elephant, that truly evokes the magic a circus can create. It is easy to see Marlena's and Rosie's pink sequins under the Big Top and to imagine their perfect choreography as they perform unbelievable stunts. The crowd loves it--and so will the reader. The ending is absolutely ludicrous and really quite lovely. --Valerie Ryan.
Price: $4.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The success stories speak for themselves in this book from money maestro Dave Ramsey. Instead of promising the normal dose of quick fixes, Ramsey offers a bold, no-nonsense approach to money matters, providing not only the how-to but also a grounded and uplifting hope for getting out of debt and achieving total financial health.

Ramsey debunks the many myths of money (exposing the dangers of cash advance, rent-to-own, debt consolidation) and attacks the illusions and downright deceptions of the American dream, which encourages nothing but overspending and massive amounts of debt. "Don't even consider keeping up with the Joneses," Ramsey declares in his typically candid style. "They're broke!"

The Total Money Makeover isn't theory. It works every single time. It works because it is simple. It works because it gets to the heart of the money problems: you.

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Price: $13.58 [Notify me when price goes down.]

If you've ever wondered why the latest fad diet doesn't work for you... well, there are lots of reasons, mostly the fact that it's a fad diet. But it could also be that you're the wrong blood type for the kinds of foods the diet recommends Peter D'Adamo makes a persuasive argument that your blood type is an evolutionary marker that tells you which foods you'll process best, and which will be useless calories. He covers the entire range for each of the four blood types, from entrées to condiments and seasonings, and also makes type-specific exercise and lifestyle recommendations. .
Price: $7.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Dr. Laura Schlessinger is the incredibly popular and controversial psychotherapist who hosts a nationally syndicated, top-rated midday radio talk show. She has strong convictions and doesn't hesitate to voice them to callers. She urges women emphatically to lose a domineering jerk of a lover and pick one of the "good guys," to stay home and parent the babies they've made, and to follow the dream rather than some dreamboat. Above all, she exhorts women not to blame anybody or anything but themselves if they're unhappy and their lives seem a mess.

10 Stupid Things Women Do to Mess Up Their Lives uses real-world examples from Schlessinger's radio show and private practice to drive the message home. And the message is that our reticence to be bold and brave often makes us act like stupid, submissive victims. Once we muster the courage to take responsibility for our own problems and to tolerate the discomforts of risk, the possibilities for personal growth and joy are limitless.

If you're looking for an all-approving hand to hold, you won't find it here. If you're prepared to take a clear-eyed look at your self-diminishing behavior and to make the move to a quality existence, there's no one better than Schlessinger to keep you honest and to cheer you on. One thing's for sure: You'll never look at your relationships, behaviors and decisions the same way after you've finished reading this book..
Price: $3.28 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"A comprehensive primer on the development of these Asian tigers."—Noam Lupu, San Francisco Chronicle

The Elephant and the Dragon is the essential guide to understanding how India and China are reshaping our world. With labor now unbound from geographic borders, we're seeing startling shifts in how—and where—nearly everything we buy is made. In a compelling mix of history and on-the-ground reporting, veteran journalist Robyn Meredith untangles the complex web of business and politics, as well as environmental and cultural issues that entwine India, China, and the West. She also outlines how Americans—business leaders, workers, politicians, even parents—can understand the vast changes coming and thrive in this new age..
Price: $8.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Poor Horton. Dr. Seuss's kindly elephant is persuaded to sit on an egg while its mother, the good-for-nothing bird lazy Maysie, takes a break. Little does Horton know that Maysie is setting off for a permanent vacation in Palm Springs. He waits, and waits, never leaving his precarious branch, even through a freezing winter and a spring that's punctuated by the insults of his friends. ("They taunted. They teased him. They yelled 'How Absurd! Old Horton the Elephant thinks he's a bird!'") Further indignities await, but Horton has the patience of Job--from whose story this one clearly derives--and he is rewarded in the end by the surprise birth of... an elephant-bird. Horton Hatches the Egg contains some of Theodor Geisel's most inspired verse and some of his best-ever illustrations, the dated style of which only accentuates their power and charm. A book no childhood should be without. (Ages 2 to 7) --Richard Farr.
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