talkmagic.co.uk

Price: It varies, as the book seems to be out of print. I got mine for £22 off amazon second hand, but I've seen it go as high as £90. Its also part of Dai Vernon anthologies.

What is it Nate Leipzig was a famous magician specilizing in close-up. He was a friend and mentor to Dai Vernon, who dedicates a chapter to him in 'Stars of Magic,' commenting on his ability to perform close up magic tricks to a stage audience. If you have read about this, and want to know how he did it, then this book by Vernon and Lewis Ganson is for you!

Layout the book is devided into eighteen chapters.
Chapter 1 is a brief biography of Leipzigs life.

Chapter 2 outlines the basic sleights he utililized in his stage card magic.

Chapter 3 to 8 is Leipzigs stage act. He begins with a flashy thimble routine, then some visual colour changes, then he calls up a committee from the audience and performs various card locations and cards across routines. Vernon offers a detailed breakdown of Leipzigs methods, as well as an insight into the psychological tactics he employed to entertain people at the back of the theatre.

Chapter 9 is an enchanted cane effect, without any gimmicks, but rather difficult.
Chapter 10 moves into close up magic with silks,Chapter 11 is dedicated to Leipzigs complex Cigar manipulation act, and Chapter 12 is a torn and restored cigerette paper with a useful sucker move that apparently fooled the Emperor of Russia!
The next three chapters offer methods for a feast of close up tricks, from unusual coin sleights to a weird bit of folklore Leipzig used to predict the sex of a first born child. Highlights include a glass through table effect that can be done standing up and surrounded, a tranfprmation of a paper moth into a real one and a coin levitating in a pint of beer. All of these effects are difficult, but have huge impact.
The rest of the book describes Leipzigs close up card arsenal, including dexteritous, mathematical and mechanical methods.

Overview For me, the book is fantastic. It's far more detailed and easier to put into use than Ganson's book on Malini, but sometimes a little drier as a result. Leipzig seemed to specilize in rapid, visual effects that didnt fail or were easy to see through, and the book describes alot of them in detail.
However, they are difficult. I've had this book for three years, and only now I'm beginning to perform them confidently. While Leipzigs preferred sleights were nowhere near as difficult as Dai Vernons to my mind, he was a real master at timing and psychological methods, which require a lot of confidence and talent to pull off. However, the inclusion of such tips does enrich the book! At times the description of the method is sketchy and hard to comprehend, but they can adapted to suit yourself.

Overall I give this book 9/10!

Thanks for reading my first review. I figured if you want to know if you can swim, jump in a lake!

This sounds like a great book. Thanks for the review

jim

Alan Alan got me to buy this book YEARS ago. Well worth it. Great title.

I actually use material from this. The DL is fantastic and I use it frequently. And the Thumb Roll is great too despite the bad description of it. I think I am the only person in existence that does this move so perhaps it is a good thing the description is so bad.

Mark Lewis, I know what you mean.
Should probably add that the description of the effects in the book can
be a little hard to follow. I'd love to see how the slow motion
coin vanish works for example, and if it looks any good. Alot of tricks in a lot of books are like that, now you mention it.
Have you tried the slowmo vanish yourself?

No. Only the thumb roll. Ganson normally has very good descriptions of most tricks in his various books. Which is quite a feat since he was always describing other people's material. However, I do believe that in the case of the thumb roll this is one of the few occasions he came up short.

Thanks