It is the occasionally published bible of the sideshow. It is a cabinet of marvels, a gallery of sensations and bewilderments, all of them exquisitely-and, we might add, revealingly-photographed. Freak shows. Fat shows. Girl shows. Illusion shows and traveling museums. Wax shows, crime shows, pickled punk shows. Athletic apes! Grind shows, pit shows, and ding shows. (For the meager cover price, you will be thrilled to learn the nature of these horrible delights.) X-ray shows. Iron lung shows and posing shows. SHOCKED AND AMAZED and Amazed tells the incredible tale of the business whose demise critics love to predict, the business the politically correct have railed at, the business that knows that, above all, the show must go on.

James Taylor is the world's foremost authority on the lore and history of the sideshow, perhaps the greatest expert on the subject ever to have lived, if we may be so bold. He has appeared everywhere from the front page of the WALL STREET JOURNAL to PUBLIC EYE WITH BRYANT GUMBAL.