Here are some reccomendations

Card Magic
__________

Royal Road To Card Magic

Magic With cards By Garcia & Schindler

Coin Magic
__________

Modern Coin Magic By JB Bobo

General Magic
_____________

Mark Wilson's Course In Magic By Mark Wilson

Hope this helps!

-Blake-

Make sure and check your local library. I found instructional magic videos for free near my house.

I threw Mark Wilson's Cyclopedia of Magic in my duty bag. It's small enough to carry around, has lots of different routines of varying difficulty and the explainations and diagrams are easy to follow.

Amazon are doing a deal at the moment which I intend to take advantage of. Buy 'Royal Road to Card Magic' and 'Modern coin magic' for £13.96 or $19.51. this sounds good value and especially good as both these books have been recommended.

Just one question, has rrtcm got a new cover as there appears to be two on amazon, one old one which I was familiar with and a much newer looking one, I presume they are the same book?

The new version of The Royal road to card magic is published by a different company. The writing has been updated and it has a foreword by Michael Bailey (ex president of the Magic circle). Having said that the material is the same and personally I think the older version is better as it is the original version and it is the version that is refered to in some other books.

Harry Lorayne's "The Magic Book" gets my vote as the best beginner's book.

Whats better in coin magic for beginners?

Ammars video volume1
or
David Roths video volume1 ?

I strongly second the reccomendation for Modern Coin Magic By JB Bobo. It was my first magic book but it is great for beginers and expert preformers alike. It has easy to read instructions and plenty of great illustrations, and it is so clearly explained that it only took me about a week to master palming!

-Jeruah

Thanks for the help...

I am new to magic myself. My main interest is card magic. I have both Mark Wilson's Course in Magic and Royal Road to Card Magic. Although Royal Road is considered by many to be the bible for card magic, I find it a little difficult to understand the explanations at times. My vote would be to start with Mark Wilson's book... plus, it teached other magic (coins, rope, cups & balls, etc.) as well.

I havew to start looking for some good books...thanks for all the help with choices

Thanks for the info!

Aces in Their Faces, I agree that this is a rather stunning visual trick, easy to perform for beginners (being one myself) and the reaction that it generates is amazing.

For the beginner in magic, I would recommend How to Do Street Magic, available from Ellusionist.Com. This was the first ever video I purchased on magic and I found it to be educational, providing an insight into magic together with performances.

I appreciate the advice and guidance that people have posted but wonder whether anyone could answer a question for me?

Daryl's Encyclopedia of Card Sleights Versus Michael Ammar Card Magic.

Which would you recommend?

Greetings David,
I would recommend Michael Ammars ETMCM first without question. As a beginner, Ammar's material will give you the basic sleights necessary for the powerful tricks that are presented. I think this is more effective as it will get you in a position to perform powerful card magic ASAP and keep you focused. Daryl's EOCS's is fabulous & incredibly comprehensive. I would get it after you have mastered & performed card magic for a period of time. Then EOCS's will provide a myriad of sleight options to improve and/or streamline your existing trick base.
Hope this helps.
MMCRANIUM

Thanks to the admins for unlocking this `stickied' thread (it was locked in 2004), so that we can add some more current information.

I'd like to suggest several great video courses for newbies to learn the fundamentals of card magic:

1. Roberto Giobbi's Card College 1 & 2 - Personal Instruction: The Complete Course (link)

This video course was originally sold as a set of 4 DVDs of nearly 8 hours, but is now available as a digital download via Roberto Giobbi's website. You can buy the 23 individual chapters/lessons for €4.95 each (you can download the first one for free here), or you can get excellent savings by purchasing all 23 lessons as a package for €49.95 - very good value given the amount and quality of the content. Giobbi is an excellent teacher, with real insight into how magic works, and he teaches all the fundamentals of card magic as well as tricks that apply what you've learned along the way. Giobbi's Card College series of books is highly regarded, and this video course is based on the books but intended to be used independently. It's outstanding, and would easily be my #1 recommendation.



2. Oz Pearlman's Born to Perform Card Magic (link)

The original DVD (1 hour 44 minutes) was released in 2003, and an updated and expanded version (3 hours 48 minutes, and completely re-filmed) was released in 2013 (an overview of the differences in content can be found here). It covers basic card fundamentals like breaks, controls, forces, palms, cuts, and flourishes, along with several routines. When the original DVD came out it was very popular, and recommended often, although I don't see it being mentioned quite as often recently, and not that many people seem to be aware of the updated and expanded version.



3. R. Paul Wilson's Royal Road to Card Magic (link)

The Royal Road to Card Magic by Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue is considered to be a classic text book in learning the fundamentals of card magic. In this set of 5 DVDs, R. Paul Wilson goes systematically through the material of the book, including many of the tricks that utilize the different sleights taught. It's a very good companion to the book, and is generally regarded as superior to other videos that teach the material of the book, such as the DVDs featuring Rudy Hunter.

Some (not all) excellent suggestions above. THE MAGIC BOOK (recommended by literally thousands over the decades and all over the world - as one above:Harry Lorayne's "The Magic Book" gets my vote as the best beginner's book. ) --- "Best Ever" 4-vol. DVD set. Ya' really gotta' start reading (and watching/learning from) the good stuff!!

Imh the most important thing before buying books or videos is to find out what character you wand to be when presenting your tricks. As long as you do not know this, nobody can recommend you the right books.

A full review of the Giobbi video course in card magic fundamentals can now be found elsewhere on The Magic Café here:

Review: Card College 1 & 2 - The Complete Course (Giobbi)

The Royal Road to Card Magic was a really great book for me

To begin coin magic with some good coin ‘philosophy’, I recommend Curtis Kam’s The Pocketbook.

Todd
www.magicstore.ca