Circus History

In 1944, the big top of Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus in Hartford caught fire during the middle of an afternoon performance. Nine thousand people were inside. In seconds, the big top was burning out of control. The toll of the fire, and its circumstances, haunt Hartford to the present day. But it is the intense, detailed narrative - before, after, and especially during the panic under the burning tent - that will remain with listeners long after they finish this book.

From the author of the international bestseller Girl With a Pearl Earring and At the Edge of the Orchard, comes a stirring eighteenth-century coming-of-age tale In the waning days of eighteenth-century London, poet, artist, and printer William Blake works in obscurity as England is rocked by...

In Ludlow, Kentucky, where Confederate flags once dominated the landscape and call for civil war echoed on Facebook, a circus raised its big top—and never left. On January 20, 2025, as Donald Trump returned to office, the KKK plastered the town with hateful fliers, but the circus, a 250-year-old beacon of diversity and inclusion, stood its ground. This is the true, stranger-than-fiction story of how a creative community defied hate, bureaucracy, and small-town politics to transform Ludlow into Kentucky’s hottest real estate market.

“A mosaic mystery told in vignettes, cliffhangers, curious asides, and some surreal plot twists as Raffel investigates the secrets of the man who changed infant care in America.”—NPR, 2018's Great Reads What kind of doctor puts his patients on display? This is the spellbinding tale of...

P. T. Barnum's career of showmanship and charlatanry was marked by a surprising undercurrent of honesty and forthrightness. His exuberant autobiography forms a happy combination of all those traits, revealing the whole story of his world-famous hoaxes and publicity stunts. Here is a pageant of 19th-century America's gullibility and thirst for marvels, as told by the master of revels himself.

A gloriously funny, nostalgic memoir of a popular ESPN reporter who, in the summer of 1994, was a fresh-out-of-college intern for a minor league baseball team. Madness and charm ensue as Ryan McGee spends the season steeped in sweat, fertilizer, nacho cheese sauce, and pure, unadulterated joy...

A gripping historical fiction friendship story that will grab everyone by the heartstrings and never let go. A giant, a dwarf, and three doomed circus animals . . . By her fourteenth birthday, Babe Killingsworth measures 6ʹ9ʺ and weighs 342 pounds. In 1896, what other options does a giant...

Two young daredevil flyers confront ugly truths and family secrets during the U.S. internment of Japanese citizens during World War II, from the author of The Other Typist and Three-Martini Lunch. Louis Thorn and Haruto "Harry" Yamada--Eagle and Crane--are the star attractions of Earl Shaw's...

Lassen sie sich mit diesem Hörbuch antik unterhalten! Der römische Circus war für die Menschen im alten Rom ein zentraler Ort. Tauchen sie mit Autor Wolfram Letzner ein in eine Welt der antiken Massenunterhaltung und erfahren sie mehr über die entsprechenden Bauwerke, Veranstaltungen und Besucher zu jener Zeit.

""A brilliant, riveting, funny, terrifying journey into the beating heart of Trumpland."" —Liza Mundy, author of Code Girls In this daring work of immersive journalism, based on hundreds of hours of reporting, Carl Hoffman journeys deep inside Donald Trump’s rallies, seeking to understand...

The just-discovered story of how two enigmatic circus performers and the cultural ferment of the Gilded Age sparked the Black Muslim movement in America Delving into new archives and uncovering fascinating biographical narratives, secret rituals, and hidden identities, historian Jacob Dorman...

Two of America’s most perceptive political reporters join forces for an unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the race for the White House in POLITICO’s Playbook 2012, a series of four instant digital books on the 2012 presidential election. The second edition, Inside the Circus, pulls...