P. T. Barnum
3 books
- Struggles and Triumphs non-fictionYou read this for Barnum’s shameless, fascinating account of turning hoaxes, curiosities, and publicity into a career, with the Jenny Lind tour and American Museum at its center. He is boastful and slippery about his own virtue, but that self-promotion is half the entertainment, especially if you enjoy watching a showman build his legend in real time.
- Funny thing is, the great showman mostly tells you to stay sober, pick work you actually like, and stay out of debt, all in a chatty lecture-hall voice with little anecdotes. It's short, sensible, and more charming than a Victorian money manual has any right to be.
- The Humbugs of the World non-fictionYes, the great showman himself grousing about frauds, and the irony lands better than you'd expect. He goes after spirit mediums, quack medicines, the Moon Hoax, all in chatty anecdotes, and half the fun is watching him carefully separate his kind of humbug from the cruel kind.