Ripley's Believe It or Not! Sideshow and Other Carnival Curiosities

Ripley's Believe It or Not! Sideshow and Other Carnival Curiosities by Ripley's Believe It or Not!
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was a fan of the Ripley's Believe it or Not series starring Jack Palance in the 1980s so this looked interesting. My in-laws bought it for me for Christmas.

This is a coffee table book about sideshow performers from the 19th century through today. It's loaded with photos and reproductions of old sideshow posters. Each performer is given a page or three of text and a couple photos.

Some of the entries, like Robert Wadlow, Jo-Jo the Dogfaced Boy, and Joseph Merrick, are fairly well known. However, there were a host of thin men, conjoined twins, and sword swallowers I'd never heard of. It's an entertaining book but it's also a little sad that some of the people's only livelihood was in exploiting their conditions.

Ripley's Believe It or Not! Sideshow and Other Carnival Curiosities is an interesting look at sideshow performers from the last 200 years. 3 out of 5 conjoined twins.

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