In the 21st century there will always be the ongoing debate of which is better to learn from books or DVDs. My personal opinion is that books are better to learn from.I will make this point: Whom would you rather learn from? Someone who learned from a book or someone who learned from a DVD? Yes, it is harder to learn from a book.
Another great thing about books is that several great tricks get hidden in them. There’s also the old adage, “If you want to keep it a secret put it in print.”
While everyone is rushing to get the latest and greatest new trick, its even more rewarding to find ‘old wine in new bottles’(Greater Magic). There’s nothing better than breathing in new life into an old trick to fool your fellow magician. Chances are they will think you bought the new trick. It’s amazing to see how many new items are just reincarnations of tricks created decades ago.
Here are twenty book recommendations in alphabetical order that everyone should have. This is not ‘THE LIST’, so I may have omitted your favorite book. This list is just a good starting point to building a solid magic library. At some point I’ll discuss some hidden treasure buried in the books.
- 13 Steps To Mentalism
- Art of Astonishment
- Card College
- Card Magic of LePaul
- Classic Magic of Larry Jennings
- Close-Up Card Magic
- Complete Works of Derek Dingle
- Dai Vernon Inner Card Trilogy
- Effective Card Magic
- Expert Card Technique
- Expert Coin Magic
- Greater Magic (Out of Print)
- New Modern Coin Magic
- Practical Mental Effects
- Revolutionary Card Technique
- Royal Road to Card Magic
- Stars of Magic (Out of Print)
- Tarbell Course in Magic
- Versatile Card Magic
Posts
