Magic Tricks

I'm only halfway through the book, but I already know, I will come back to this volume regularly. I've bought this because I was interested in presentation and showmanship, but I've got much more. As a hobbyist performing for friends and family, several mentalism books disappointed me, because they only contain effects that just don't work for me. (I cannot impress my friends by knowing their birthdays, for example.) This book however, besides the invaluable theoretical essays, contain effects that are practical for me. An example is the improved presentation of the Princess card trick. I've learned a lot about presentation just by comparing the usual performance with the added subtleties recommended by the author. And my favorite effect so far is the Name/place routine, which is mentioned only as a note and described briefly. When I performed it to my family, they were completely astonished. I was surprised, because they reacted much better than to some other tricks which were theoretically stronger than this one. But because instead of an abstract playing card, I revealed things that were emotionally important to them and we could recall some mutual memories, they enjoyed it very much.

If I wanted to write something negative, I would mention that the quality of the paper is too good. It is not easy to write notes or highlight the most important sentences on this glossy paper, so I have to use a lot of post-it notes.