Magic Tricks

If you are new to books like "Maximum Entertainment" or the writings of Tamariz or Darryl then this book will catch you up on certain schools of thought but not give you the fine details.

If you have read the the book or authors above then you will get some opinions with what you likley know already.

Either way pricey for what you get.

Some of the writing was not fleshed out or seemed unreal. For instance some of his examples of discussions with other magicians who seem to be more caricature than real by lacking even basic functioning empathy. He uses this magician as a McGuffin making a point others already have made....apparently adding his agreement.

To paraphrase the book Swiss basically writes "I agree with this summarized citation I could have just given you but decided to write a story illustrating the idea first." The source material for the book is decent and sometimes unavailable to many people due to price or rarity. But the ideas they discuss...plenty of other sources discuss the ideas in more detail than Swiss goes into and occasionally cheaper than this book.


The book isn't all bad. Aside from some nuggets of wisdom, implicitly stated at times, there is stories of Swiss's positive interactions with other magicians.

However a few schools of thought summarized with some scattered opinions, a few stories from the road....that makes this book a tough sell for the price.