Book description
Looks at carnivals and circus midways, focusing on a variety of sideshow performers, including Melvin Burkhart, the Human Blockhead; Percilla the Monkey Girl and her husband Emmitt the Alligator Man; and Mortado, the Human Fountain.
- Coming soon!
Why read it?
1 author picked James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Published in 2002, I love this book for its personal interviews with performers and showmen from the latter half of the 20th century. It’s a chance to not just read about sideshow history, but to hear it straight from the mouths of such people like Jeanie Tomaini the Half Girl, Melvin Burkhart the Anatomical Wonder, and impresarios Ward Hall and Bobby Reynolds.
Plus, it’s filled with plenty of extraordinary photos.
From Dan and Marc's list on sideshow performers making the impossible possible.
If you love James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed...
The Rosewood Penny
2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!
The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.
On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…
Want books like James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 36 books like James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,340
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like James Taylor's Shocked and Amazed, you might also like...
Murder, Lies and Chocolate
Book 2, Death by Chocolate series.
Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…
Tangle of Time
A spellbinding journey through time and cultures.
When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…
