talkmagic.co.uk

As most people will already know, “Dover Publications” publish a whole range of magic books, Bobo’s and RRTCM to name but two of the classics and it is very likely that everyone here already has several DP books in their magic library.

I have just had a look at Amazon, and was amazed at average price of these books. They are all less than £10 (with the exception of the wonderful Edward Sachs book), and the majority are actually less than £5.

I find this incredible. There are some really fantastic books in their catalogue, and at prices considerably less than your average package trick. In fact there isn’t much in Magic that you could buy that is less than one of these books. Maybe a TT or a sponge ball, but not much else.

I have created a list of SOME of the books and the prices as sold on Amazon(UK), however Amazon also offer many of them second hand at even CHEAPER prices.

So why not order a book as your next purchase?

• Bobo’s Modern Coin Magic by J.B. Bobo. £6.96
• The Encyclopedia of Card Tricks by Jean Hugard £6.18
• Royal Road To Card magic by Jean Hugard £6.18
• Expert Card Technique by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue £6.17
• Magic and Showmanship by Henning Nelms £5.69
• The Expert at the Card Table by S.W. Erdnase £4.73
• Card Manipulations by Jean Hugard £6.36
• More Card Manipulation by Jean Hugard £7.16
• The Art of Magic by T. Nelson Downs £6.17
• Classic Coin Tricks by T. Nelson Downs £4.74
• Self Working Mental Magic by Karl Fulves. £4.76
• Self Working Table Magic by Karl Fulves £5.96
• Self Working Coin Magic by Karl Fulves £3.68
• Self Working Paper Magic by Karl Fulves £3.68
• Self Working Card Tricks by Karl Fulves £4.76
• Self Working Number Magic by Karl Fulves £3.68
• Self Working Rope Magic by Karl Fulves £3.68
• Self Working Handkerchief Magic by Karl Fulves £4.20
• Self Working Close Up Card Magic by Karl Fulves £3.68
• More Self Working Cards by Karl Fulves £5.56
• My Best Self Working Cards by Karl Fulves £3.68
• Mathematics, Magic and Mystery by Martin Gardiner £4.20
• Magicians Magic by Paul Curry £6.17
• Magic, a Picture History by Milbourne Christopher £7.12
• Martin Gardner’s Table Magic by Martin Gardner £4.20
• Charles Jordan’s Best Card Tricks by Karl Fulves (Ed) £4.74
• Scarne on Card Tricks by John Scarne £7.67
• Scarne’s Magic Tricks by John Scarne £6.97
• Houdini on Magic by Harry Houdini £4.74
• The Secrets of Houdini by John Clucas Clannel £4.74
• Easy To Do Magic Tricks for Children by Karl Fulves
• Professional Magic for Amateurs by Walter B. Gibson £4.20
• The New Magicians Manual by Walter B. Gibson £5.79
• Abbott's Encyclopaedia of Rope Tricks by Stewart James £6.17
• Sleight of Hand: Practical Manual of Legerdemain for Amateurs and Others by Edwin Sachs £12.95
• Mullohand’s Book of Magic by Mullohand £4.74
• Hugard’s Magic Manual by Jean Hugard £6.17
• Card Control by Arthur H. Buckley
• Hoffman’s Modern Magic by Professor Hoffman
  

One of my favourites is the Paul Curry book. In case your wondering it does have his OOTW trick in it.

Wow, once again I find dedication above and beyond the call of duty, thanks very much for putting that work in m8

If I remember right you also get free delivery if you spend over £25, so if you see a few you want, group that order

... and look out for Amazon's 'Combo' deals... very good way of 'buy one, and get one half-price' collection building.

Being an owner of about 85% of the books mentioned above, I can recommend every one. Dover publications has long been a shelf-filler for me, and as mentioned, with most of the books being sub-£10, there's no excuse to build your library.

It's strange, that no more than 5 years ago, finding REAL magic books was a struggle. Now that they are freely available, it almost seems that our little 'underground' art is coming to the fore. But fear not, with all the new minds of magic coming out from the woodwork these days - the art will perpetually keep itselft fresh and new.

But, don't ignore the history. You MUST read some Bobo, Anneman, Fulves, Hugard/Braue etc. to see where the real work comes from. And if you note that a lot of these books were first published before even the most ancient (!) members of the forum were even in nappies, then you'll appreciate that these guys are the forefathers of what we know today.

As always, Mr 'Fish... thanks for another excellent 'jar' to the head! Keep it coming (time permitting)

Yes Seige, magic is more available than ever before.
Manchester now has a large magic shop on it's main shopping street.
They are happy to show laymen how to do stuff, whatever it takes to get a sale etc, nice eye catchers in the window and prime location on a very very busy street.
So I am sure it has reached out and touched many new people, lets hope some of them stick with it

Sorry not much to do with the books I know, lol......

Cool - 3 of the Top 10 must have books for magicians are listed there

Here it the list in full (Thanx to Lybrary.com)

These books were rated the ten basic books for a working library of conjuring by H. Adrian Smith, historian, collector and owner of the largest private magic library in his time.

The Expert at the Card Table by S. W. Erdnase
The Art of Magic by T. Nelson Downs
Magicians' Tricks by Henry Hatton and Adrian Plate
Modern Magic by Prof. Hoffmann
More Magic by Prof. Hoffmann
Later Magic by Prof. Hoffmann
The Modern Conjurer by C. Lang Neil
Our Magic by Maskelyne and Devant
Tarbell Course by Harlan Tarbell
Greater Magic by John Northern Hilliard

Dover Publications rule OK!

I have several of the above and, in addition to the Karl Fulves books, I can particularly recommend Magicians Magic by Paul Curry. This is the guy who invented Out Of This World, the colour separation routine which fooled Churchill during WW2. It also shows a great little card effect where ten magicians leave ten top hats at the cloakroom during a magic convention, one hat is visibly lost yet they all leave with a hat at the end. Self working, easily self made props and I still have the set I made back in the early 1980's when I got this out as a library book!

Thanks a lot, I'll definetly be buying some of those - Magician's Magic looks great. - How about a review of it??

OK, will go through the book again over the weekend and Review it - assuming nobody else does it first! It was first published back in the 1950's so is refreshingly different to later books yet not quite so 'dry' as RRTCM. Paul Curry isn't all that well known in his own right but he provided a lot of effects and routines for the big names at the time. Incidentally, my copy came (via Santa) from Waterstones as did many of the Karl Fulves books so it might be worth nipping in to an ordinary bookshop in case they have them available - with no P&P charges involved!

Just in case anyone is ever around in central London, there is a Dover bookshop on Earlham Street (near Tottenham Court Road and Leicester Square Underground stations). I haven't been in there for a while, but they definitely stocked some of those books when I was last looking round.

BaBaBoom wrote:Yes Seige, magic is more available than ever before.
Manchester now has a large magic shop on it's main shopping street.
They are happy to show laymen how to do stuff, whatever it takes to get a sale etc, nice eye catchers in the window and prime location on a very very busy street.
So I am sure it has reached out and touched many new people, lets hope some of them stick with it

Sorry not much to do with the books I know, lol......

Which street?

lol
http://www.magicworld.co.uk/

Go to the shop though, not heard great things about mail order

Hope that helps m8

edit : er, the contact add. is stockport and I can't find mention of the shop
It used to list a store in Manchester so might be worth a call ?!
I chatted with them a while ago but I never got around to popping in, the prices weren't that hot, anyway give them a bell

You might want to have a look at: http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=17519#17519

I happened to be up in central London on Saturday and popped into the Dover bookshop, but they only had a couple of magic books. It looked as thought the stock in that section had run down a bit (empty shelves) so they might get more in at some point.