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Card college is published in 4 hardback volumes and tells you everything you ever wanted to know about handling a deck of cards.
Price: Varies (I paid £90 for all four volumes)
Author: Roberto Giobbi

The book claims to be "a complete course in sleight of hand card magic" and yes it does exactly what it says on the tin!
From the fundementals of holding a deck, yes there is a wrong way, to learning techniques such as Ed Marlo's ATFUS and way beyond. Add to this chapters on managing an audience, constructing tricks and full performances these books have it all.
A total of 52 chapters leads the would be cardician through explanations of different methods of handling, each supported by very useable tricks and each progressing from the previous chapter. It's worth it for the trick content alone.
If you like the packet trick "club sandwich" then these volumes show similar effects, all working with a clean deck.
I just wish I'd found out about this before buying all the other books I've allready got.
This is better than "Royal Road" I agree £90 is a lot of money but I doubt you'll have to buy another card trainer ever.

The card college books are good but the majority of tricks need a table and tend to be more exstensive routines instead of visual, strret magic style effects. But despite this i do agree that its worth checking out

These books are great! My recommendation is don't buy them for the effects that they include. There are some great effects included, but that's not the point of the series. Get these books for the techniques that they teach. Commit to learning these techniques flawlessly and then any effect you desire to learn will be more professional and get a stronger audience reaction. I especially like the advice on presentation and routining.

Just thought I'd add this link to the review as it looks top quality to me

http://www.lybrary.com/index.html?goto=books/Card_College_1.html

Good link.

Just thought I'd add that a fifth volume came out in 2003 and more than one place will do a deal on a purchase of the entire set.

Excellent series of books giving in depth how to on all minor and major card techniques. I agree with the above review about a lot of the effects covered requiring the Magi to be seated.
Why is it that 90% of close up stuff on the market assumes that the performer will be seated?
I never have been in 24 years, there are some great effects out there but for me the majority are useless as they do not reset quickly or require that I am seated................no good.
Back to the books, worth every penny if you want to learn technique, sooner or later you will want to learn the Pass or a DL, or a jog, or a palm.
My advice................BUY ALL 4 BUT FORGET 5

Thanks guys, this was very helpful! I might look into buying the first four volumes.

hi there!
Just thought I might add something in, I promise I'll be brief since probably most has already been said!
I purchased Card College (volumes 1 - 5) a couple of months ago and been learning on it since!
In my belief, there is anything you could possibly need for sleight-of-hand card magic, although you're probably never going to use more than half of the moves or tricks explained in there.
So, if that's the case, what is the strength of it?
At first, you would sat that volumes 1 and 2 are the most important ones, full of basic and very important moves you need to learn to have at your disposal (plus volume 2 contains some pages on theory, behaviour and psychology that look just like PURE GOLD to me!). Actually you could spend quite some time just on those two. Volumes 3, 4 and 5 I believe need to be seen from a somewhat different perspective, that is like an encyclopedia, in the real sense of the term.
Let me explain: unless you are a well-experienced professional (and I by all means am NOT! ), you wouldn't need to learn all those moves, however, if you are just a little more experienced and you would like to create your own routine, or you have an idea in mind that might work but you lack the tools (the sleights) to make it happen, or even if you don't like a part of a trick in your repertoire and would like to make it better, well that's when those volumes become extremely useful!
Volume 5 deals with professional, well taught routines that take some time to learn (at least with me!) but are of great effect! The effects in there are many and of very different nature, so there's a little for everyone, also very nice if you're into exploring something different than what is usual for you!
Last but not least, for every sleight or trick there are some notes on the behaviour you should keep, the presentation or the presentations that might suit the trick or the problems that you might encounter, along with a way to solve them!

My rating: 9,5 / 10 - I reserve to myself the use of the left.over 0,5 in case anything greater should appear and I would vote on it!

Edoardo

Don't forget, many tricks that "need to be seated" can be adapted to use people's hands instead. You can often fan instead of ribbon spread, get people to hold things (need to practice your authority etc. in terms of telling them not to turn over!). I'm currently practicing a hand-held zarrow too!

Hi, i was thinking of getting this soon actually, either this or Art of Astonishment. Can anybody recommend which would be better for the close up street magic type tricks?

Thanks, Rich

Both of these books are excellent buys indeed - real founts of knowledge. Which of the two you would buy depends a little on your circumstances. If you believe that you are already proficient with a deck of cards then the one to go for would be Art of Astonishment, if you would rather learn more card sleights and techniques then you will learn just about all of them under the sun with Card College.
Both books are very well written, with Art of Astonishment being hilarious in places (see yoghurt through table). Card College, fairly obviously, deals exclusively with card tricks (refer to previous discussions about the necessity of being seated) many of which are classics. Art of Astonishment deals with a range of different types of close up tricks, but the majority of them are card based. If you do want to buy Card College you can find it at http://www.hermeticpress.com (the publisher), and some other well known magic sites. Art of Astonishment is widely available.

Thanks for your response. I know how to handle a deck of cards quite well, i think im ready to go onto more advanced things. I think i'll buy both!

Card College for the vast array of card sleights so i have a reference for everything. Art of Astonishment for the cool effects that i've heard about! And maybe Bobos book because i want to get into coins!

....Wow! Expensive!

Hi there,

I've been thinking of buying these - but wondered if I should dive in part way through.

I’ve been into card magic on a regular basis for two years now. I’ve gone through The Royal Road, and have bought more DVDs than I’d care to mention. I’ve recently bought a really fantastic book on the magic of Dave Campbell by International Magic (if there isn’t a review here I’ll write one). This book is purely effects – no teaching of sleights – the reader is expected to have a good all round knowledge of this, and it’s made me want to move my technical ability up a level. I’m fine for Double L’s, Elmsley and Hamman Counts, palming and top changes… but I know that there is much more to learn.

So my question (finally) is this: Is it worth me buying all of the books in this series? On the one hand I’d like to go ‘back to basics’ – but if Book 1 is very basic, then it would be an expensive item just to whiz through in an afternoon.

Thanks,

PS – Don’t tell anyone about the Dave Campbell book! – It’s so good, it’s one of those things you’ll want to keep to yourself!! Look out for a review from me shortly if there isn’t one already – but let’s keep it between us!

if you're recommending books may i add - expert card technique - jean hugard, and seventh heaven - Lewis Jones....genius...