Reddit reviews The Illustrated History of Magic

This is a great question for here.

Is your boyfriend into history at all? The Illustrated History of Magic is a beautiful book and full of fascinating facts about magicians from the past. It's not really just tricks so it's something you could enjoy with him.

For actual trick books, The Books of Wonder are probably the most important books for magic in the last 20 years. ^[Citation ^needed]

If your boyfriend is into more theoretical views of magic (not a whole lot of people are though) the Fitzkee trilogy are what Tommy Wonder (the author of the previous book) cited as the most important books for him. They don't really focus on cards, but are more a theoretical take on all of magic.

I'm not really all that much of a card magician. I would assume he has the important card books already. (Expert at the Card Table, Expert Card Technique, Royal Road, etc) Maybe Revolutionary Card Technique.

Hope this helps!

You might also want to check out the Illustrated History of Magic (Amazon) which is a pretty expansive historical review of the entire art of magic.