Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, Published 2006

When the book opens, we are first introduced to Jacob Jankowski. He is an angry, 90 or 93 year old man who has been living in an assisted-living center for a short time due to a broken hip. Jacob has found little joy in living at this center because he feels as though he is treated like a child. Jacob is strongly independent and does not like having all his decisions made for him. He hates the monotony of bingo and the sense of ancient bones. The only joy Jacob gets inside the center is the attentions of the elderly women and the red and white canvas going up across the street.

The reader then becomes enveloped in a flashback, turning back the clock to when Jacob was a 23 year old college student at Cornell. He is devastated by the death of his parents in a car accident, causing him to run away as far as his feet could take him. He soon becomes tired and hungry and decides to jump aboard a moving train. This train happens to be the Benzini Bros Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Jacob’s sudden arrival is not entirely welcomed by the habitants of the train car, but soon Jacob befriends most of cast and crew of this traveling circus. He manages to move up in the rankings from poop shmucker to vet, and develops closer relationships with August, the equestrian director, and Marlena, a performer.