Reddit reviews Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear

The 16th century isn't really the "Birth of Magic", so much as it represents the first printed magic books in English.

With that in mind, any resource is going to be primarily based on "The Discoverie of Witchcraft", and therefore you may as well go to the source yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/Discoverie-Witchcraft-Reginald-Scot/dp/1153345269/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

There are plenty of magic history books out there. The majority in print are by Jim Steinmeyer, but his all cover a similar period - the "golden age" of around 1900-1940 or so. "Hiding the Elephant" is probably the most generic of his books, and gives an overview to the period with particular regards to optical effects:

http://www.amazon.com/Hiding-Elephant-Magicians-Impossible-Disappear/dp/0786714018/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313347852&sr=1-1

For a wider point of view:

http://www.amazon.com/Performing-Dark-Arts-Conjuring-Consciousness/dp/1841501492

is not a bad alternative. This book tries to place magic in an anthropological context. This will detail more of the period you are after, but again, the same sources will be referenced, and they're not hard to find.

The birth of magic is really with Robert-Houdin, and you can't get any better than his own memoirs:

http://www.amazon.com/Memoirs-Robert-Houdin-ambassador-author-conjuror/dp/1178024555/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313348089&sr=1-6

This is, of course, 19th century and not 16th. They are still a cracking read, and what he got up to in Algeria defies belief.

For "Women and Magic", by far the most interesting I feel is the influence of the Suffragette movement on stage magic - specifically P.T.Selbit's "Sawing a lady in two" which bucked the trend of using young male assistants, in favour of the now-cliche women-in-danger. To what extent this was a (violent!) reaction to the greater powers and control that feminism offered is highly debatable, but very interesting. Houdini also had some tussles with the Suffragettes, mainly as publicity. Again, this isn't 16th century.

Empty my pockets, breathe, check in on my mental state and focus in/get centered, and then fist bump someone.

Re Mantras/relationship to the audience: I like TJ Jagodowski's habit of shielding his eyes from the stage lights and looking at the audience. And I think it was in Hiding the Elephant that I read about a magician who, from behind the curtain, would whisper "I love you" to the audience before taking the stage. I've stolen TJ's move for once I'm on stage, and I try to remind myself of my love for the craft, audience, and opportunity before I step out as well.

I loved Hiding the Elephant by Jim Steinmeyer. You'll likely get many recommendations for it here.

I also liked Fooling Houdini by Alex Stone.

wait, one more!!!

Hiding The Elephant is a great fact based read about magic for anyone interested.

Congratulations on the bonus! Those are always fun.

I'm a booknut, so if I were you I'd go for Console Wars. I have that one on my "To Read" list as well and it looks really interesting. When you're 14 years old playing Super Mario Bros. 2 on your Nintendo 64 you'd never even consider the development, marketing--business--side of what you're playing with.

I love reading through other peoples' wishlists to see what they're reading and to find suggestions to add to my own list. (I "borrowed" a few from you too!) :)

I saw that you have The Truth About Uri Gellar on your list. Have you read [Hiding the Elephant] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0786714018/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2ODFXD0JPMTVD&coliid=I37PF07RQSRYSV)? I haven't read it yet so I can't tell you if it's any good, but it's in the same genre if you want to check it out.

Thanks for the contest! ;0)

Edit: renegade hyphen

Reading a book on stage magic made me think more deeply about attention, and how you can “hide things in plain sight” by redirecting your audience’s attention.