I do recommend that you do start with a beginners book. Unlike myself I purchased and intermediate/ Advance book and didn’t understand how it was wrote and couldn’t follow it. It wasn’t until I read a beginners book that I understood how to follow a how these books are written. I went back to the advance book and now can understand. And follow.

Hello everybody. I thought I'd drop in with a set that I am finding fantastic. The Essential Card Magic Toolbox (mostly) by Liam Montier.

I've found his teaching style to be clear, and he spends a lot of time discussing why certain moves can be deceptive and giving what seems like really good advice. I'd recommend his series to anybody.

https://bigblindmedia.com/products/essen......-montier

Tarbell is a great set for beginner and/or experienced magician.

My first magic book was Darwin Ortizs' At the Card Table. I know, bad choice for a first book, but I stuck with it and I was hooked. I didn't get discouraged, I found something to aspire to. Of course I ended up going back and buying much simpler books but I never rewgretted buying Darwins' book first.

This topic has been of interest to me for a while, especially because I'm involved in introducing young people to card magic. So I decided to write an article about it, covering some of the top resources (both books and videos) that I'd recommend for newcomers to card magic. Here's a link to the article:

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR BEGINNERS IN CARD MAGIC
https://playingcarddecks.com/blogs/all-i......rd-magic

Is there a significant difference between "The Original Tarbell Lessons in Magic" (MARTINO FINE BOOKS, 1200pages e.g. amazon for ) and the series of publications with the single lessons?

For a beginner, one of the best books on card magic is Roberto Giobbi's Introduction to Card Magic. It's certainly the best value book you can get right now, since Mr Giobbi is generously making it available free for a limited time, to promote the art of card magic, and to help those who genuinely want learn the basics properly. The content is terrific!

He originally created it as a course for people learning card magic, and it teaches all the fundamentals of card handling, along with links to youtube videos showing the moves, and half a dozen tricks. See a detailed review on The Magic Café here, or else just download it from his website here:

https://www.robertogiobbi.com/site/produ......rd-magic

"Thank heavens for Harry Lorayne and THE MAGIC BOOK." (Michael Vincent.)

I had to look up Michael Vincent.

https://www.michaelvincentmagic.com

"Thank heavens for Michael Vincent." (Harry Lorayne.)

Tarbell


it has everything

Tarbell is a mine of information, especially for those seeking to expand their background knowledge of magic, for that reason it is highly recommended. Where it falls down though is in actual tricks, if you buy a set of linking rings or multiplying billiard balls etc and then consult Tarbell for suitable routines you are going to find yourself very disappointed; it simply doesn't match up to modern requirements. I remember deciding I needed to find some decent impromptu card effects I could do with a borrowed deck and I went through the whole of Tarbell without finding a single trick that I felt was strong enough to be worth doing - not one!

Someone above asked about the difference between the Tarbell lessons and the Tarbell course in book form. If you have all 8 Volumes of Tarbell then you're going to have far more material that that available in the Lessons, and the order of the that things appear in is different too; but the Lessons is still a valuable book and you could call it 'Tarbell Lite', good for those who don't really feel the need to go through 8 volumes.

Does Tarbell really contain everything as is often claimed? Well of course it doesn't, nowhere near in fact, but no book on magic no matter how big it is could contain everything. If the world of magic could be condensed into a mere series of books, even a very large series, then it would never have survived the hundreds and possibly thousands of years that it has been happily going for.

I would recommend the fine art of magic by kaplan