(Part 2) Top products from r/Magic

Not in any particular order, but any of these would be perfect for your young 10 year old aspiring student of magic! None of these will break your bank! :


The Magic Digest by George B. Anderson I picked up a used copy of this book 5 years ago for around 2 dollars. In my opinion, you should acquire a copy for your son for cheap before the prices go up! Don't worry about getting a pristine/good copy, my copy is in "acceptable" condition, but that doesn't take away from the secrets and advice it holds. It's an old book, but it's excellent! It is filled with solid advice for magicians of any age and very solid magic all throughout. It still falls into the realm of a "beginners" book, but I'm definitely not a beginner in magic but was still blown away by its content! Most of the tricks are self working, some use very basic sleight of hand that is also expertly taught in this work. This is truly a book I wish I could have had earlier on in my study! I simply can't recommend this enough!


Big Magic for Little Hands: 25 Outstanding Illusions for Young Magicians by Joshua Jay Despite his young age, the author Joshua Jay is without a doubt one of the most knowledgeable and thoughtful students of magic that I've encountered over the years. This book is a fantastic example of why I have this opinion about him! I picked this up a year ago for one of my co-workers kids that loved watching some of the magic I do. I was humbled to have my co-worker tell me that because of me and some of the tricks I taught his father, that she too wanted to learn magic. I was so humbled that I wanted to do her father and her a solid and get them both a quality magic book that was suitable for a 7 year old. I got wind of this and ordered it. After reading half the book over the weekend before handing it to her father the following Monday, I was so inspired and blown away by the content in here that I ordered a copy for myself to study also. The magic and advice in here is that solid and it I don't care if it's targeted at young magicians! I still learned from it! Fantastic!


Magic: The Complete Course by Joshua Jay There is a nice mix of basic sleight of hand and self working tricks in this big book for an outstanding price! The magic taught in here is top notch and this book encompasses many, many areas of magic! Heck, they even tip a way for an aspiring magician to make something like an Invisible Deck, which is considered by many top professionals to be one of the best "special decks", with a common household item. I've tried it myself and it works beautifully in a pinch! This book even comes with a DVD to accompany some of the amazing content in this work!


The Magic Handbook by Peter Eldin This holds a special place in my heart! I believe it was 1988 when my grandmother gifted me this very book when she thought I was "outgrowing" my Fischer Price magic set. This book is outstanding and it's easy to tell that Peter Eldin has a deep love and respect for magic as an artform. There is only a few basic sleights in here, but don't let that scare you or your son. I was 5 when I started learning a lot of this stuff and thanks to the clear illustrations and text, I had very little trouble learning basic card handling from this as well as ways to conceal a coin. One of the highlights for me in this was a very unique handling of a classic coin trick known as "The Miser's Dream". Your son will have the ability to seemingly and continuously produce coins out of thin air and get this...without sleight of hand technique....This version is still a "go to" for me...Need I say more? :D

​

Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic This book truly lives up to what the title promises. I would be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive course in magic for 15 bucks! Sponge Balls, Cards, Coins, Mental Magic, Stage Illusions that can be made at home, solid advice from a legend, information that I haven't found elsewhere, among other things! This book will keep both and your son busy for a long, long time! Self Working tricks, basic sleights and tricks to accompany them, great methods, inspirational food thought. I simply wouldn't feel right not recommend this to anyone who loves magic!

​

Karl Fulves "Self Working" Series: All of these are dirt cheap and worth any students time and study regardless of age or experience! Collect them all or simply pick a subject that your son favors! This series encompasses mental magic as well as magic with cards, coins, numbers, paper, rope, handkerchiefs, and household objects! Any one of these will serve your son well.

​

Scarne on Card Tricks and Scarne's Magic Tricks I would recommend getting both of these together. There are hundreds upon hundreds of quality tricks from some of magic's legends including: Paul Rossini, Dai Vernon and Harry Blackstone to name a few! All these tricks were re-worked by those magicians with the help of John Scarne to eliminate most or all sleight of hand while not sacrificing the clarity of effect! These two books are classics for a reason! Highly recommended!


Lots of recommendations here for sure and yes these are all books, but I'll even recommend a fantastic and entertaining DVD for you and your son!


Amazing Magic and Mentalism Anyone Can Do by Jay Sankey 39 stellar tricks that are as fun to learn as they are to perform. Very basic sleight of hand tricks and even some self working ones taught by one of my favorite teachers, Jay Sankey!


TL;DR: Just click on the links provided. Hope you like what you see! :)

Scott's tome is an interesting historical event unto itself, but I don't think it's that instructive in any greater capacity. Milbourne Christopher's history is good for breadth, but not as much for depth. Everything by Jim Steinmeyer is probably a good idea.

If you're writing about women in magic, some more detailed biographical work is probably in order. Bill Kalush's Houdini book doesn't say much about Bess, but I think that a lot can be learned by reading between the lines. It's also very informative about the "Golden Age" boys club and the feud between magicians and spiritualists.

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Life-Houdini-Americas-Superhero/dp/0743272080/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313429451&sr=8-1

On the same subject, the David Abbott books by Todd Karr and Teller are amazing. Abbott's wife helped a lot with the act, and the first book gives a lot of details about the development of magic and spiritualism in the US:

http://miraclefactory.net/zenstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=75

The Karr/Teller Germain books are also good, but not as interesting with regard to women and apparently out of print.

Our Magic, by Maskelyne and Devant, is one of the most influential books ever written on the way that magicians see themselves. Like Scott it isn't a historical analysis or overview, it's a historical document. There will be a whole lot in here that will help you represent magicians convincingly. Lybrary.com has a cheap pdf version if you don't have a kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Magic-ebook/dp/B004Z8L26Y/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1313429822&sr=8-4

Houdin's instructional books and memoirs are also held in high regard by magicians, and also give a lot of information about their own particular historical context:

http://www.amazon.com/Conjurers-Confessions-M-Robert-Houdin/dp/1425017150/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313429966&sr=1-1

I think a lot of knowledge about magic history still hasn't really been culled out of the books of tricks. In particular, the recent history (say 1940 to present) hasn't seen much analysis in print. If you want a historical view on that timespan, it's probably more efficient to consult a magician– or a few.

If you have specific questions feel free to message me and I'll give you an email; women and magic is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. If not, I think that most of the books mentioned previously and all of the ones I've linked are very good. In particular, the Karr/Teller volumes are incredibly valuable for the depth of historical knowledge that they contain. The Kalush book is a no-brainer because of how easy it is to get and how rigorously researched it is.

Hopefully that helps somewhat.

01: Trade up feature - Both initial cameras come in under budget. The $40 difference isn't drastic.

02: Battery - This is the only real issue I'd compare. A single charge lasts about 2 hours for the GoPro and the DJI Pocket. That's 2 hours of pure record time. When I carry mine around I'm recording in 30 second or 5 min chunks. It lasts all day. Are you ever really going to record a 2 hour show or a 20 min show six times in one day without time to recharge? You can always buy the charging case later if you feel like it's not lasting long enough.

03: 120 fps vs 240 fps seems like an issue, but it's something you'll never really use and 120 is plenty for slow motion. 240 needs a ton of light and 1 second record equals 10 seconds playback. It's a feature that you'll play with a few times then only use for an artistic intro to your videos. The average user wouldn't be able to tell any difference between a card trick done at 120 or 240 and for evaluating yourself 120 is fine. You'd never want record an entire show in 120 or 240... just a quick move or two. Everything else would be at 24fps anyway.

04: This type of bundle is $359 and comes with everything you'd need to mount it to anything plus an SD card and case. You can find the bundle right for you on Amazon for well under $700.


---------------

Some additional things to think about:

Dealing with warped GoPro footage is problematic unless you know what you're doing in post-production and you have to do it to every shot every time. Plus I never use the audio from my GoPros. It's always very windy and creaky due to the nature of the camera use.

Either way you'll have to buy accessories and mounting stuff. It's not like the base GoPro comes with anything drastically different out of box.

This is their exact GoPro competitor. I've never used it, but I think functionality-wise the pocket is better for your needs.

Both cameras have amazing footage but the GoPro has "GoPro-looking footage". It stands out like crazy everytime you see it. Watch the barrel scene from The Hobbit. The DJI could be integrated into anything and feel like just part of the normal shoot.

I know when shopping for tech it's easy to get bogged down in the numbers, but out of the two I definitely recommend DJI Pocket. Many of these concerns are similar to buying an Xbox or a Playstation and only paying attention to the graphics card. Buy for what you WILL do with it, not for the very top performance potential that will never actually be utilized.

But... if you want the most versatile/highest quality camera for the money... get an iPhone X.

The best camera is the one you have on you when you need it.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Card-Magic-Volume-Course/dp/B000JPG96A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407229541&sr=8-1&keywords=Complete+Card+Magic

I recently purchased this. An absolute steal for the price. Yes, some of the tricks / moves are incorrectly named (which is down to poor editing IIRC) but Gerry Griffin is a fantastic teacher and it starts out with very basic, easy to do effects and moves up to some very strong stuff. It also has a fantastic section on sleights, cuts and shuffles which is a good visual companion to Royal Road.

Sleight of hand with coins

Sleight of Hand

Sleight of Hand with Cards


Edit: there's my 3 suggestions that I've had great experience with. These are 3 staples in any magic collection in my opinion.


Ok! I need to clarify one thing. These books are very old. Don't get discouraged at the fact that the vernacular can be somewhat confusing. If you take the time to look up any words that might be hard to understand and just work trough the text, you will find timeless effects that you'll be able to show off for years to come! Don't dismiss a move because it seems so simple!

Absolutely! Here's a short list of non-magic books that I commonly see recommended to magicians.

Understanding Comics - Scott McCloud

Purple Cow - Seth Godin

Delft Design Guide - multiple authors

An Acrobat of the Heart - Stephen Wangh (shouts out to u/mustardandpancakes for the recommendation)

In Pursuit of Elegance - Guy Kawasaki

The Backstage Handbook - Paul Carter, illustrated by George Chiang

Verbal Judo - George Thompson and Jerry Jenkins

Be Our Guest - Ted Kinni and The Disney Institute

Start With Why - Simon Sinek

Lots of common themes even on such a short list. What would you add to the list? What would you take away?

For a great resource on self working card trick, I highly recommend the book Scarne on Card Tricks. It is a fantastic book for sleight-free tricks, and it's very inexpensive.

If you're interested in card and dice hustlers theres a good few books on that. Titanic Thompson and Fast Jack are two great places to start

Pretty sure if you order from Amazon you can ship worldwide! :)

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.

To the spirit of the question: Rising card decks, specifically the Devano style deck.

http://www.martinismagic.com/Products.html

​

My favorite is the Nifty 56 deck - which is a pack of assorted bicycle gaffs.

https://www.amazon.com/Magic-More-Bicycle-Assortment-Available/dp/B01MZI692I

If anyone is unaware of Mark's book "The Magic Show", it's truly incredible. I had it when I was young and still love it:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Magic-Show-Anne-Benkovitz/dp/0761115951

1. Johnny Thompson Commercial Classics of Magic - $140
   
   
2. Michael Ammar Complete Introduction to Coin Magic - $20
   
   
3. Amateur Magician's Handbook - $15
   
   
4. The Collected Almanac - $60, if available
   
   
5. Three Uses for a Knife - $11
   
   
6. Regular Decks Red and Blue - $4/Deck ~8
   
   
7. 6 Kennedy half dollars - $3
   
   
8. 1 Expanded Shell - $35
   
   
9. 1 set of 4 sponge balls - $5
   
   
10. Strong Magic - $35
    
    
11. Tarbell Course in Magic - $168
    
    At this point, total is $500..
    
    
12. Art of Astonishment vol 1-3 - $35/book = $105
    
    
13. Five Points in Magic - $35
    
    
14. Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic - $15
    
    
15. Greater Magic - $195
    
    
16. Conjurors Psychological Secrets - $50
    
    
17. Essential Dai Vernon - $98
    
    Instructions to student:
    
    Read and study Three Uses for a Knife and Strong Magic. Notice the theories at work in other forms of media beyond magic.
    
    Watch Johnny Thompson and Ammar vids and observe the theories in practice. Work through Amateur Magician’s Handbook and Ammar vid.
    
    Read Five Points in Magic.
    
    Read Essential Dai Vernon and note how the five points work with those effects.
    
    Read Conjurors Psychological Secrets.
    
    Learn and practice Thompson effects.
    
    Pick and choose through remaining books what you want to learn.
    
    Keep re-reading theory books and modifying your routines.

it's on here...
https://www.amazon.com/Magic-DVD-Set-Complete-Teaches/dp/B000JPG96A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466633337&sr=8-1&keywords=card+magic+dvd

TBH this is a pretty decent DVD for the price. Lots of tricks, as well as lots of basics. I feel it goes well with Royal Road and Card College (books) as a supplement.

You're not wrong, it can also be called Speed reading, but you need to emphasize "speed reading PEOPLE". Here's a book I found for you : http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-SpeedReading-People-Language/dp/0316845183/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351278697&sr=8-1&keywords=the+art+of+speed+reading

EDIT : Here's another : http://www.amazon.com/What-Every-BODY-Saying-Speed-Reading/dp/0061438294/ref=pd_cp_b_0

Amazon - Experiencing the Impossible by Gustav Kuhn

- Available now in Kindle and hardcover

I found Hiding the Elephant by Jim Steinmeyer informative

Encyclopedia of Card Tricks + Bicycle Gaff Deck

600 tricks + a gaff deck. These two should keep you chugging for a long time, as opposed to getting a couple of decks of cards, or buying a standalone gimmick or effect.