Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About GentleRain

CBR14 Participant
CBR14 Bingo Badges
CBR15 Participant
CBR16 Participant
CBR17 Participant
CBR17 Levels

Your jack of all trades eccentric. Knows a little about a lot and a lot about a little. Tends to mainly read non-fiction (history, true crime, old gossip, etc), SF/F, horror, graphic novels, "genre" books. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: GentleRain's Quick Questions interview.)

GentleRain's Reviews:

“It’s not circus if it isn’t under a tent.”

Through Sun, Rain, Wind, and Mud: On the Road with Cole Bros. Circus by Bill Carter

by Leave a Comment

CBR14Bingo: Camel (the camel is an exotic animal, and there are photos of exotic animals in this book) The title’s sentiment isn’t one I completely agree with, having seen great circus in an arena setting, but the experience of sitting in a tent does elevate the experience and bring a more elemental feeling. I recently got to see Paul Binder talk about the circus and he pointed out the core nature of a round ring, and that there is a fundamental power in sitting in […]

“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

by 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

by 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 […]

This Series Will Make You Want to Move to Tokyo

Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live? (Vols 1-5) by Maki Hirochi

by Leave a Comment

CBR14Bingo: New (the manga is about real estate agents helping people find new apartments) This was my second read of this series and it lived up to my happy memories as a piece of escapism. Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live? is about two sisters who run a small real estate agency in Tokyo’s popular Kichijoji neighborhood. Whenever someone comes in and says that they want to find a new place in Kichijoji, the sisters end up dragging them to a different neighborhood that […]

“You kids are different from the farm animals who have no way out. Running away in order to live is fine. Perfectly fine.”

Silver Spoon Vol. 1-15 by Hiromu Arakawa

by Leave a Comment

CBR14Bingo: Series (it’s a series) This is one of my favorite manga series and one I was re-reading again just out of a desire to read something cheerful and warm-hearted. Silver Spoon is by the same author as Fullmetal Alchemist, her much more famous work. It follows Yuugo Hachiken, who decides to go to an agricultural high school in rural Hokkaido because he hit a plateau in mainstream academia and was pushing himself so hard to succeed that he’d lost all enjoyment in life. By going […]

“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)

by 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 […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo