101 Greatest Magic Secrets Exposed

Rating:
Summary: Great book on magic
Review: Expose? I would say not, educational, for sure!

Worth the money, sure, why not.

Rating:
Summary: This is a great book, magician or layman!
Review: Okay, so I dont want to run off and join the circus as the magician, but I do want to be able to do a few tricks. This book is awesome! Really.

I have seen many magic books in the stores, but nothing else comes close. Becker is a great writer with clear instructions. If you want to be able to perform magic, this is the book you need to buy.

Rating:
Summary: Plain wrong!
Review: The guy who wrote this book likes to drop names such as Andre Kole (world-famous prop builder) and David Copperfield (not the Dickens' one) as "friends and consultants". He also states he worked on stage with live cougars, that once his audience doubled in laughters as he blotched a levitation number, and that his son likes to illustrate - thus he did the illustrations for this book.

Well, guess what. I am only prepared to believe the latter two.

This book is a hodge-podge of "exposures" in any and every branch of illusionism: you get stuff like "snuff a candle 'hidden' behind a bottle" right to "how to make the Space Shuttle disappear". And you know what? In many many cases he doesn't get it right.

The explanations usually go like: "Then of course in the specially designed crate you have an invisible wireless two-way communication device, and an undetectable set of scuba diving gear...". Come on! Maybe I'm not the best expert in the field, but it doesn't take much to understand that in the real world things just don't work this way!
Actually, I'm amazed that he didn't try to sell the "Copperfield flies on hidden supermagnets" theory, as it ranks in the same cookiness range.

He does in fact get right the usual small tricks your uncle Ben used to do at the dining table - simply because they're printed and spelled oud everywhere already.

Bottom line: get some serious "how to" book instead of this, and please someone tell Kole, Sigfried & Roy and Copperfield that this guy is badmouthing them.

Rating:
Summary: This is a great book, magician or layman!
Review: The guy who wrote this book likes to drop names such as Andre Kole (world-famous prop builder) and David Copperfield (not the Dickens' one) as "friends and consultants". He also states he worked on stage with live cougars, that once his audience doubled in laughters as he blotched a levitation number, and that his son likes to illustrate - thus he did the illustrations for this book.

Well, guess what. I am only prepared to believe the latter two.

This book is a hodge-podge of "exposures" in any and every branch of illusionism: you get stuff like "snuff a candle 'hidden' behind a bottle" right to "how to make the Space Shuttle disappear". And you know what? In many many cases he doesn't get it right.

The explanations usually go like: "Then of course in the specially designed crate you have an invisible wireless two-way communication device, and an undetectable set of scuba diving gear...". Come on! Maybe I'm not the best expert in the field, but it doesn't take much to understand that in the real world things just don't work this way!
Actually, I'm amazed that he didn't try to sell the "Copperfield flies on hidden supermagnets" theory, as it ranks in the same cookiness range.

He does in fact get right the usual small tricks your uncle Ben used to do at the dining table - simply because they're printed and spelled oud everywhere already.

Bottom line: get some serious "how to" book instead of this, and please someone tell Kole, Sigfried & Roy and Copperfield that this guy is badmouthing them.