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Street Magic by Paul Zenon
(I know a lot of people here seem to love him but I've never seen him, so this is impartial!)

Cost
Says £12.99 on the back but about on Amazon £8

Difficulty
1-easy to do

Review
This book covers a few subjects (Self working, Coins, Cards, Gimmicks, Mentalism, Scams and Party tricks), and all of the effects are very simple to perform and clearly explained with lots of pictures. Full colour throughout and loads of pictures, and an informal but clear writing style, it's definately more fun to flick through than most other magic books I've seen.
The chapters are all very short, teaching only what you need to know to perform the included tricks (which is fine of course) but there is so little depth (every trick in the first card chapter seems to revolve around crimping your cards!). I wasn't expecting RRTCM version 2 or anything but I was hoping for something a bit more magical than what's in the '100 magic tricks!' kind of books I like picking up in charity shops. I'm surprised he missed out the 21 card trick!
The book is fine for what I think it is meant for (amazing friends down the pub, doing a few tricks with little effort or practice etc) but nobody who is really interested in magic (and so would be on this website reading reviews) is going to find much that is useful.
I don't mean to sound down on the book (I'd love a more advanced book in this style) but there isn't much I didn't know already when I got it as a superbeginner, and there are much better all round introductions out there.

Overall
8/10 if this is your first book as it covers a lot and will get you on your way, otherwise 4/10
I had this book recommended but I certainly would not pass that on to anyone who is seriously interested in magic, get Royal road to card magic and Bobo's Modern coin magic for just a little bit more and you'll have a lifetimes worth out of them. However, if you just watched David Blaine and have the sunglasses and Ellusionist deck already, you can surely make your schoolfriends think you're magic with this book and very little time, otherwise I'd not bother unless you see it in a charity shop or something.

This is my first review so please let me know if it's OK, and especially if you agree or disagree.

Already been reviewed:

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To be honest though - the search function is goosed at the mo, so if you did do a search using the site's search function, you wouldn't have found it.

Best way to do a search is using a search engine to search the talkmagic website.

Although the Search Function doesn't, er, function, there's a listing of reviews at the start of each review section. It hasn't been updated for a while but the older stuff will be there.

Pepsi Twist wrote:Overall
3/10
I had this book recommended but I certainly would not pass that on to anyone who is seriously interested in magic, get Royal road to card magic and Bobo's Modern coin magic for just a little bit more and you'll have a lifetimes worth out of them. However, if you just watched David Blaine and have the sunglasses and Ellusionist deck already, you can surely make your schoolfriends think you're magic with this book and very little time, otherwise I'd not bother unless you see it in a charity shop or something.

This is my first review so please let me know if it's OK, and especially if you agree or disagree.

Horses for courses.

At the risk of feeling the brunt of rage from the traditional faithful...

I too was recommended this book, I also own RRTCM and Bobo, however, I prefer this hugely. I find both RRTCM and Bobo to be comprehensive but laboriously so, almost to the point of boredom. I use both more for reference than technique. Paul Zenon's Street Magic gives you a wide range of sleights and effects in a much easier to learn format than either of the traditional tomes, with them you can achieve pretty much anything you will ever need to and if you cannot, as I said, you can use RRTCM and Bobo for reference purposes.

A_n_t wrote:

Pepsi Twist wrote:Overall
3/10
I had this book recommended but I certainly would not pass that on to anyone who is seriously interested in magic, get Royal road to card magic and Bobo's Modern coin magic for just a little bit more and you'll have a lifetimes worth out of them. However, if you just watched David Blaine and have the sunglasses and Ellusionist deck already, you can surely make your schoolfriends think you're magic with this book and very little time, otherwise I'd not bother unless you see it in a charity shop or something.

This is my first review so please let me know if it's OK, and especially if you agree or disagree.

Horses for courses.

At the risk of feeling the brunt of rage from the traditional faithful...

I too was recommended this book, I also own RRTCM and Bobo, however, I prefer this hugely. I find both RRTCM and Bobo to be comprehensive but laboriously so, almost to the point of boredom. I use both more for reference than technique. Paul Zenon's Street Magic gives you a wide range of sleights and effects in a much easier to learn format than either of the traditional tomes, with them you can achieve pretty much anything you will ever need to and if you cannot, as I said, you can use RRTCM and Bobo for reference purposes.

Whoever recommended you this book must have been very clever and attractive!

I did say I'd like a more advanced version of this, the reason being it is much easier to read than the more traditional books. Still I think most people who are serious enough to be looking on these sort of websites for reviews would be better spending their money on the others (though you're clearly a lot more magically advanced than I am and they should probably listen to your recommendation over mine! (Sounds sarcastic but honestly it's not)))
And I did use the search function but it didn't come up, if someone wants to delete this they are welcome

No worries:

I always recommend this book to anybody starting off - it is, in my opinion, the best starting-up book there is.

I wouldn't have been here today without it

Since I am so easily swayed I added a bit giving it a good mark for if it's your first book :p Would be nice to see 'The trickier bits of RRTCM' in this format though!
And I've just looked at the reviews list, there's already 3 other reviews of it so I'm in good company

Bought this relatively cheap from Amazon and I just leave it in the loo for the occasional delve (not a euphemism!). I agree that this is a really good starting point as it covers all the bases, nowhere near as good as Mark Wilson but because of it's name and more up to date look will probably appeal to the yoof.

I feel rather fond of this book!

After not doing magic since childhood, it's the book that got me into it again! Once I learnt OOTW there was just no looking back!

I've just ordered this book as it popped up as recommendation when I was buying playing cards online. Sounds like its quite simple stuff but I'm fairly new so should be able to find something of use in it.