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Three Ringling Circus: A History of Sarasota, Florida, and the Famous Ringling Brothers
Three Ringling Circus( A History of Sarasota Florida and the Famous Ringling Brothers) <> Paperback <> SandraGurvis <> PineapplePress
248 pages, Paperback
Published January 16, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 23, 2026
I really wanted to like this book. I like to study up on places I travel, so when I knew I was going to visit the Ringling in Sarasota, I was excited to find this book to learn more context and history about the site and the family. It did provide that, but was a slog to get through (I actually only made it halfway through before my visit and had to finish it after).
The issue with this book is that it reads like a first draft that wasn’t edited before being published.
Right in the first chapter, discussing the history of the area, it claims the first humans in the area descended from those that crossed the ancient land bridge between what is now Alaska and Russia (that part is true) but has the people traveling the wrong direction, FROM North America TO Asia. On the next page, it says the first regional cultures (where populations stay in one area) started to develop in 1100 AD, then in the same paragraph says the first of these regional cultures was there from 500 BC to 800 or 1000 AD, which would mean the first regional culture there faded out at least 100 years before regional cultures began to form….???? While these bits don’t pertain directly to the Ringling story, it does make me question how many of the facts presented about the Ringlings were also misstated. A thorough editing process would have caught these issues, along with other clear errors like multiple lines of text being duplicated.
The writing itself also needed editing and could be hard to get through at points due to run on sentences, awkward phrasing and odd quoting choices. As an example, this is one sentence that follows a discussion about how Ritz Carlton was building a hotel near Sarasota in the 1920s, but abandoned the effort due to financial reasons:
However, like rock and roll, which allegedly never dies, in 2001 the Ritz-Carlton built a hotel on the site of the old Vernona, an iconic historical loop, back to former owner Burns and John Ringling, who renamed it the Ringling Towers, where it was eventually converted to apartments and then knocked down to make way for this 21st-century Ritz whose “unparalleled luxury and experiences” allow “exclusive access to The Beach Club on Lido Key, an onsite spa, championship golf, spacious suites and guest rooms and 60,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor event space at this Gulf Coast destination,” according to the hotel website.
I did appreciate the sense of the Ringling family and Sarasota that I got from the book, but I was pretty disappointed in the quality. This could have been a really good book with some editing.
The issue with this book is that it reads like a first draft that wasn’t edited before being published.
Right in the first chapter, discussing the history of the area, it claims the first humans in the area descended from those that crossed the ancient land bridge between what is now Alaska and Russia (that part is true) but has the people traveling the wrong direction, FROM North America TO Asia. On the next page, it says the first regional cultures (where populations stay in one area) started to develop in 1100 AD, then in the same paragraph says the first of these regional cultures was there from 500 BC to 800 or 1000 AD, which would mean the first regional culture there faded out at least 100 years before regional cultures began to form….???? While these bits don’t pertain directly to the Ringling story, it does make me question how many of the facts presented about the Ringlings were also misstated. A thorough editing process would have caught these issues, along with other clear errors like multiple lines of text being duplicated.
The writing itself also needed editing and could be hard to get through at points due to run on sentences, awkward phrasing and odd quoting choices. As an example, this is one sentence that follows a discussion about how Ritz Carlton was building a hotel near Sarasota in the 1920s, but abandoned the effort due to financial reasons:
However, like rock and roll, which allegedly never dies, in 2001 the Ritz-Carlton built a hotel on the site of the old Vernona, an iconic historical loop, back to former owner Burns and John Ringling, who renamed it the Ringling Towers, where it was eventually converted to apartments and then knocked down to make way for this 21st-century Ritz whose “unparalleled luxury and experiences” allow “exclusive access to The Beach Club on Lido Key, an onsite spa, championship golf, spacious suites and guest rooms and 60,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor event space at this Gulf Coast destination,” according to the hotel website.
I did appreciate the sense of the Ringling family and Sarasota that I got from the book, but I was pretty disappointed in the quality. This could have been a really good book with some editing.
January 16, 2025
It’s a must if you live in the area like I do. I learned SO much, it was fascinating and I loved the deep dive on Florida history.
Read
January 11, 2025amazing
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews