A wacky lady at a neighborhood dog park saw me reading (months ago) and after two minutes of conversation couldn’t help but make a book recommendation. She didn’t come off as well-read, or being able to read at all. So I thought maybe there was some karmic reason why I encountered her. Her suggestion turned out to be a good one. The book isn’t typical for me (set in the past, popular fiction). The characteristics of the mainstream novel (cliché circumstances, hollywood ending, formulaic structure) didn’t distract. The slightly thin character development didn’t deter. The setting, a depression-era circus train, wasn’t annoying. Themes of surviving against-all-odds, falling in love, animal cruelty were not overdone. And the author did a nice job describing the perspective of an aging man in an assisted living facility. One of my favorite books this year in a Titanic-Forest Gump sort of way.