Rating: 
Summary: Sorcerer's Apprentice
Review: I was amused by one of the reviews - how much squalor and grit could you want? This book described the lowest classes in India living in absolute squalor and poverty, scraping a living in the most ingenious ways, you get a picture of how strong the human spirit really is, even in the direst circumstances. This is the background of the story about Tahir Shah's training in magic and the art of illusion. Fascinating story, appeals to the cynic in me who believes that most "spirituality" is smoke and mirrors. anyway, I highly recommend this book - what an adventure. Loved the whole story from his childhood in England to his training in illusion and magic in India, and then his journey through India.
Rating:
Summary: Superb!
Review: In this day and age it is difficult to find a travel writer that doesn't indulge in whining or criticism. Tahir Shah is the best author I have read for years-definitely fresh and in his own catagory. His mixture of zany humor and absurd situations keep the reader in a constant state of disbelief. He doesn't hesitate to get in the trenches, but maintains his own brand of comical narrow-mindedness and reserve.
Don't miss this one, or any of his books.
Rating: 
Summary: Entrancing, but somewhat disappointing
Review: It's a highly entertaining book, full of great stories and some interesting insights into parts of India's culture. But, like the godmen whose stories he tells and whose secrets he gives away, it doesn't amount to much more than entertainment. The reason that the book is so easily comparable to a novel (cf. other reviews) is that it really has been written like one. The dialogue is almost certainly fictitious and a lot of the events, I believe, have been amended to make better reading. Yes, the book flows and it's a pleasure to read, but perhaps it shouldn't... some of the grit that I was expecting is conspicuously absent. As much as I enjoyed the book I think that it was missing some of that squalor and detail and that could have made it a truly brilliant book. The photgraphs inside the book are marvelous and Mr. Shah does touch on some issues that are truly heartbreaking (his experience with the witch-hunt, for example); but he never seems to get to the core of the connection between the misery and the illusions. The book bounces between quaint travelogue of aspiring illusionist and notes from a naive westerner in India (some of his cries of indignation at the conmen he comes across make him sound like a complete fool: I hope they're fictional). But between that there are moments of brilliance and I won't deny that I was entranced by the book. I certainly recommend it, you'll be telling the stories that you read for weeks; just don't expect any... magic.
Rating: 
Summary: Should be labeled as fiction
Review: On pages 15 and 16 there is the story of a woman from Chicago who went to a cosmetic surgeon in Karachi and asked for liposuction. When she came out of the anesthetic she found that her lips had been removed. Gimme a break! This is prime urban myth material. After this section how can I believe anything in this book? Although, taken as fiction, it was somewhat amusing.
Rating:
Summary: Rationalists Unite
Review: Shah soundly and completely defeats any notion of true wizardry-- this at a time when Harry Potter is sparking in kids the idea that they might have access to the bizarre world of magic. It's odd that his description of the Rationalists is kept to a few pages as he describes this movement that literally "pulls the carpet out from under" the sadhus and godmen of India. Has he no obligation to admit his allegiances? He does what all magicians would screw-up their face at-- he reveals his tricks, and theirs, and everybody elses. Some of the stories are truly enjoyable, and the kid Bhalu is endearing. The Sorcerer's Apprentice serves as a collection of strange but true stories that reveal alleged inner-workings of Indian culture. But are the stories really true? Are we even allowed to ask? These are questions that Shah attempts to dispell in the beginning of the book. Initially I picked it up hoping to find a Casteneda-like description of a world of sorcery-- instead I got the anti-shaman-- jumping up and down in the front of the magic show saying "I know how they do it!".
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Sorcere's Apprentice, Tahir Shah - Excellent, excellent book! From an unbelievable start to an equally astounding
finish. Tahir sets out to expose the mendicants, magicians, godmen (for they are almost always men), and tricksters of
India. What a better way to do it than to become one! But that requires a rigorus tutelage under the Master, requring
Tahir to perfom tasks least related to magic: eat pebbles, ingest soap, dig a deep trench armed only with a teaspoon,
etc. The book can be divided in three broad parts: the early years which detail why Tahir became interested in this
arcane area, the second part discusses tutelage under an exacting Master, and the final part consumes itself with a
journey across India putting the latest learned skill to test. Here is the explanation of the famous Indian disappearing
rope trick, or making vibhuti (ash) out of thin air, walking on fire, dangerous surgeries where the godmen pluck out
livers and intestines of the patient only to have the patient recover and walk away! Of the three parts, paradoxically, the
last one is the least interesting. Maybe the author could not sustain the levity, humor, quick wit, and sarcastic writing
that is evident in the first two parts. In any case, this was an excellent read. (September 2001).
Rating:
Summary: Spirituality and tricksters blend with travel and insights
Review: Sorcerer's Apprentice provides the autobiography of Tahir Shah and his apprenticeship to Hakim Feroze, an Indian master conjurer. Spirituality and tricksters blend with travel and insights into Indian culture in this revealing, involving memoir which makes for a riveting read.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Travel Writing
Review: Tahir Shah's book is certainly a memorable read. Through the streets of Calcutta to far flung reaches of outback India. Shah's "journey of observation" is stunning, sober, funny, and a delight to read. This book qucikly goes to the top of my all time favorites. Thanks Mr. Shah! You are a writer I have learned important lessons from.
Rating:
Summary: Surreally enchanting
Review: The English-born son of an aristocratic Afghan (Pashtun) family, Shah became interested in magic as a boy, introduced to it by a clansman, Hafiz Jhan. Jhan was forced to give up his own study of the illusionist's art when he came into his legacy - the guardianship of the tomb of Shah's great-great-great grandfather, a warlord - a duty he had temporarily forsaken to save young Shah from a premonition of an early and undignified death. Already this story of Shah's Indian sojourn and apprenticeship is fantastical, enchanting, exotic and hilarious and the rest of the book easily lives up to its stranger-than-fiction promise. Shah himself - the naïve foreigner, wide-eyed, sometimes arrogant, self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek, observant but sometimes not observant enough, curious and determined - keeps us guessing. How much is real, how much is trickery? The first of three sections of "Sorcerer's Apprentice" describes the background story and Shah's early travels in India visiting his ancestor's tomb and Hafiz Jhan and looking for Jhan's teacher, India's greatest conjuror, Hakim Feroze, in Calcutta. He is robbed by tricksters on the famously dangerous Farakka Express and interviews widows made outcast by a husband's demise, now clustered in the thousands by the sacred Ganges, waiting for their own death. Finding Feroze by happenstance, Shah embarks on a grueling course for the second part of his story. He digs trenches with a teaspoon, sorts rice and lentils blindfolded, learns to regurgitate on command, reads voraciously. Feroze, dapper, aristocratic, diabolically demanding, wakes his student in the middle of the night to answer arcane questions while balanced, blindfolded, between two chairs. Feroze also shows him the illusionist's tricks, exposing the secrets of spoon bending, plunging a hand into molten lead, stopping and restarting the pulse. He hands Shah a ball of tin foil and tells him it will soon become too hot to hold, which it does. Feroze explains the trick - a rubbing with mercuric nitrate. " 'Mercuric nitrate?' I said. 'Isn't that incredibly poisonous?'
'Yes, as a matter of fact it is,' said Feroze coldly. 'It's lethal. The toxicity is the drawback of the trick. But that's irrelevant for now.'" Somewhat worse is the trick of raising Shah's body temperature to 104 degrees. At last the pupil is ready for his "journey of observation," a trip across India observing godmen, healers and fortune-tellers; illusionists who pass their art off as miracle. Shah has already made smaller journeys around Calcutta. Guided by a resourceful rickshawalla, he has observed the workings of Calcutta's underclasses: the goldsmith shop sweepers who pay for the privilege, then sift the dirt for gold dust, selling the remains to a still-poorer class who sift again; beggars who pay to take care of another's cow so passers-by will pay to feed it; childless beggar women who rent babies; men who steal the corpses of paupers to sell their skeletons to Western medical schools. For section three Shah is joined by a 12-year-old con man, an ingenious guide who knows all the scams. With the boy's aid, he saves an old woman from a witch's fate, discovers the secret of bloodless surgery, watches water turn to petrol, sees tulips nod as a godman passes, meets the world's richest man, learns how to stop not just a pulse but the heartbeat itself, witnesses a duel of miracles, and much more, exposing the secrets of venerated scam artists in their temples and tents, while maintaining a aura of surreal enchantment. Shah reveals not only the tricks but the real marvels of Indian life - the amazing resourcefulness of poverty, where nothing goes to waste, everything is recycled and recycled again (Shah even visits a restaurant where all the dishes are made from discarded food), where practicality and ruthlessness coexist with mystical gullibility, and the ordinary Western reader is amazed, appalled and humbled. Funny, illuminating and very different, Shah's first book-length account is itself a marvel.
Rating:
Summary: WORKED FOR ME.
Review: This book is rich in detail and humour. Shah travels predominantly down the east coast of India in search of the bizarre and finds much to write about. The places and people are fascinating and so characteristic of India. In addition Shah makes the reader feel as though they are travelling along with him. Incredibly funny in parts and quite sad in others, this book is a must.
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