Excelsior District Improvement Association

Thanks to Judith for hosting our May 11 discussion of City of Thieves by David Benioff. We were happy to reconnect with some long-time members, albeit in consideration of the horrific conditions and ethical challenges presented by the Siege of Leningrad. We expect to soon see City of Thieves adapted into a screenplay.

The Excelsior Book Club will meet next on WEDNESDAY, June 22, 2011, 7:00 PM, at the home of our Bernal Heights neighbor, Dan Rosen, 608 Anderson Street , between Crescent & Ogden. Muni line 23 stops 1 block away (get off at Ellsworth and walk back one block to Anderson and left toward the hill), or the 24-line stops at Cortland 3 blocks away (get off at Andover, walk East 2 blocks to Anderson, turn right and walk downhill on Anderson).

For June, we're taking on a bestseller and great summer read: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. (2006, 331 pages). At the SF Library, there are multiple copies, plus CD and Ebook versions. It is available at all major bookstores, and from Amazon for $8.38 + shipping.

At the beginning of Water for Elephants, 93-year-old Jacob Jankowski is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His frustration at being trapped in an old man's body is palpable. His mind wanders back to a time when he was young and assumed responsibility for a great secret, which he has faithfully kept all this time. When he was twenty-three, having suddenly lost his parents in an auto accident, he abandoned his veterinary studies at Cornell and hopped a circus train. The third-rate circus he joins, in Depression-era (1931) America , is no Ringling Brothers, and everyone there is lucky to have any job at all. Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob's time with this circus, as told in flashbacks by the elderly Jacob. 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, and the humans are not in much better shape. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the "menagerie" and all its ills. His circle of care expands to the troupe of freaks, drifters, and misfits accompanying him on this locomotive "ship of fools." For pure story, this colorful, headlong circus tale can't be beat. Heroes, villains, romance, a wild-animal stampede! Big fun from page 1.