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Collins Gem Magic Tricks – The Diagram Group/Harper Collins
Price: £4.99 or thereabouts
Available from: Bookshops, both 'on-line' and 'in reality' types.

And I thought they only did those French/English-English/French etc Gem Dictionaries so beloved of my happy days at school – how wrong can one Mandrake be?

What It Says On The Tin: Over 50 tricks explained. In fact there are 53 in this 4.5” x 3.25” book (those who love the metric system will have to work out the conversions for themselves).

Review/Overall: This was a really spontaneous/compulsive purchase at the time and I don’t regret it one bit! The tricks described include a few of the old yawn effects – linking paperclips, breaking matchstick in a (hopefully clean) hanky, magic knife/paddle trick, divine the colour of a crayon held behind your back etc. but there are some good other effects. All illustrations are colour photos and the props are the more usual type which can be found in magic trick sets. One trick uses a prop wand of the type I’ve never seen or heard about but I guess it must be available somewhere. As an initial book on magic, it’s a good starter and, although it contains nowhere near as much as Nick Einhorn’s book which is available for the same price, it is at least more easily fitted in the pocket! Coins, ropes, envelopes, tumblers of water, silks, balloons, maths etc are all used to great effect, and there is a very good routine on the classic Cups & Balls trick, great photos and easy enough for an idiot like me to follow.

Although there is no stated author, the four names thanked for checking out the tricks are all female, and the photos clearly show female hands performing the effects. I’m not saying this is significant but it does show that the ladies are well represented in this book.

Value for money: 8/10 – you’d happily pay a fiver for one trick and here you get at least 30 good ones for that price.

C.U.P.S. Rating: Same again - 8 out of 10.