I'm sure this has happened to some of you. You buy a book, read it, and cannot find anything useful for yourself in that book. No effects, no sleights, no different way about thinking about things...nothing. What are some books currently ( or formerly ) in your collection that fit this criteria? For myself it has been:

Hilliard's Card Magic - no material in it that I didn't already have in other books
John Carney's Carneycopia - the Versa switch was the only promising item in this one, but I never fully dedicated the time to learn it well and ultimately didn't need to use it.
Simon Aronson's Try the Impossible - didn't realize much of it involved stacked deck work.

How about everyone else?

Oh wow. Carneycopia is one of the best books on closeup sleight of hand ever written.
The introduction alone is worth the price of the book. (Seriously) I think every new comer to close up should read it.

Try the Impossible is loaded with killer magic- and I don't mean the mem deck stuff (although it is great too)

But to each his own. I almost never sell books but one that people enjoy that I got rid of fairly quickly was Woody Aragon's a Book in English- not that it isn't a fine book mind you, just not my cup of tea.

I'm sure I'll be scolded by some for this, but it's a good topic and if we were actually in a Café together, this would be a lively, exciting, friendly discussion where we would happily point out the virtues of others' cast asides.
Hopefully it will be the same here at our wonderful virtual magic Café.

Hi ssibal,

Äh, also oh..wow..here

great topic..but...perhaps some very bad examples...the Hilliard book is perhaps the reason because you have books with the same contents...and moaning about Carney and Aronson...come on! Seriously?! Carney is one of the best sleight of hand artists in the world who really studies and has studied what he does...and complaining about Aronson because in his books he uses "stacked deck work"?!?!

-Sorry, I seldom intermingle in put-down-posts but man...you don´t know what you are talking about!

But otherwise it could be a helpful and interesting topic!

The worst ACAAN I found in a William Miesel book, but there some other great routines in it...an absolut useless book???- I´ll have to think about it...

Axel

Axel, not sure why you would say I don’t know what I’m talking about... I read the books listed and didn’t get anything useful out of them, that is a fact regardless of whether you or anyone else found useful information in those books. Congratulations if you did. There are no “bad” or “good” examples in this topic. Each person will come away with something different when they read a book. The topic is about books “useless to you” the key being YOU, the individual. I am not making a blanket statement on any of the books, I am just giving my personal perspective on their content.

@ssibal,

That's what I took away from your original post, that while you didn't get anything out of them, doesn't necessarily mean others didn't.

Now I need to go to the bookshelf and see what I didn't care for.


Dave

...oh, magicfish has edited his first entry! I too hope that this will be a friendly discussion...!

Please don´t get me wrong but in Carneycopia there are so many thoughts within the routines (that I almost don´t use as described, but get the thinking behind it into my routines!) that are really valuable to me and things I wouldn´t have minded otherwise!.
In Try The Impossible there are almost 200 pages without the Aronson Stack, as I recall there are two (?) routines with a more complex set-up and another 100 pages with the Aronson-Stack...complaining about that there are too many routines that uses a stacked deck would be the same as complaining about Tamariz´s Mnemonica that it also has too many routines that uses a stack deck...I have Ascanio´s World Of Knifes and there are hardly card effects in it...(Sorry to be a little bit polemical)...
At the moment I would classify only two books in your category but only because I hadn´t enough time to study them as I received them, I just scrolled through the pages, read here and there but didn´t took the time they probably deserve are The Secrets Of So Sato and Japan Ingenious...but as I said...I have to re-read them more carefully as I almost had no time as I purchased them (there is a fine bill routine and a puzzling "puzzle"-routine...but to be honest on the first an second look there was almost nothing that got my interest...Any hints?


Axel

I got a Scryer book one time, and I think its the only magic book I felt compelled to sell immediately. Its possible that I wasn't the target audience, but I felt like most of the methods seemed to be opaque to the point of being impossible to figure out, or basically said "just actually read their mind, you can do it".

Maybe this is incorrect, but to me that book was garbage and super overhyped.

Also, one book I had a really hard time getting anything out of was Wesley James enchantments. I thought because it was so big and got such good reviews at the time of release (maybe not so much later), it would be easy to find workable material, but that book didn't do it for me. It felt... very dense and very difficult to read. I will have to try his card warp though, I heard that was good. If anyone else has any suggestions I'd take them.

I hate to say it but anything by Pit Hartling. I have tremendous respect for the man and his work but there's nothing usable for me. Having said that I always purchase anything he releases.

Also surprised that Carneycopia was listed, but to each their own. I’ve only thrown out one book but it was so forgettable I cannot recall the name. It was written under a pseudonym and was spiral bound, roughly the same size as Killer Klose Up or Fork Full of Appetizers. I want to say the guys name was Frank or Richard/Rick but I honestly can’t recall. I do remember after reading it I did some research and he didn’t have a great reputation. Maybe someone can recall.

While one of the more entertaining books I’ve read, I didn’t find much new, usable material in Steve Mayhew’s What Women Want. Kudos to John Lovick’s writing though.



Check out the sections on the second deal, bluff shift, low lateral palm, and the Sigma Principle. I also have tabs on pages 31-33, 57, 69, 73, 82.

At this point, the book Concertos for Pasteboard has nothing interesting for me. But it is a long time that I read it. So I should investigate it again. But the reason I couldn't find anything valuable for me then, was that I got the idea most (maybe all) tricks used extra cards, a second deck, blank cards, props etc. I'm a hobbyist. So I perform for friends, family and co-workers. So I like to focus on card magic with a regular deck. Does this make sense?

Anyway, with the reasons above, I can see that this book could be a great value for someone else. But at this time not for me. But I will look into it again. If there is someone who wants to point to a 'killer effect', I'm all ears.

For me The Card Classics Of Ken Krenzel, by Harry Lorayne.

I even tried to sell it, but had no luck.
Anyone interested in a copy in perfect shape?

Mark

Excellent book, I'd jump on it but I already have a mint copy. How much?

When I tried to sell it, I asked for 25 Euros, P&P not included if needed.
I guess that if the person lives on the other side of the Pond, shipping may not be cheap.

Mark

Generally with books I experience the "It's not you, it's me" phenomenon.

It's not that the book was no good, but that I just wasn't ready for it.

But a book that was useless to me yesterday can suddenly become essential.

So I take my skepticism towards any given book with a large grain of doubt these days, as who knows, tomorrow I'll be frantically looking for it on my shelf.

Any trick with finding the single mate after all the procedure.

Great point. I've experienced this many times.

Great thoughts. This is such a basic point that gets lost very often. I find posts raving about how a great a book without specific personal use or experience
just generally useless. Its not about the books (people romance about them like is evident here, I don't care about romanticizing). It about our experience with the books.

Useless is a strong word as I always learn something or two from books and none proved to be useless to me yet, though what comes to mind as some of the less useful are ... hmmm ...

-J K Hartman's Trickery Treats stands out. The tricks are "nice" but nothing that spoke to me and adopted yet.

-Lots of Peter Duffie ebooks. There're some gems though I really read them because I'm a geek about methods, however, I don't find myself performing most of them for laymen.

- Wesley James enchantments, big book with interesting work on techniques but I haven't really used any except the finesse on the Temariz double replacement. None of the tricks spoke to me.

On Simon Aronson's Try the Impossible: If you're not a stack worker (full or partial) I don't think the book will appeal to you so I see where you come from.

On the "Generally with books I experience the "It's not you, it's me" phenomenon.", that attitude can be a dangerous double edge sword as while there's some truth to it, it allows the risk of just faltering your own taste in favor of someone else's which is a dangerous position to be in, in an art form. In addition, wasting your time with books can drive you away from books that would have had more benefit to your current stage. With romanticism you also risk misreading the book altogether: In Complete Collection of Roy Walton, Many of the tricks are just not good and not suited for professional performance (someone will come and kill me), but that was not the intention of its creator. All in all, the reality is that many card magics books ultimately are not that great for our own needs but we're too polite to say it openly (like in this thread).

"On Simon Aronson's Try the Impossible: If you're not a stack worker (full or partial) I don't think the book will appeal to you"

- funny, I'm not a stack worker and it's one of
My go to card books.

I would be interested in hearing more examples, experiences, and things you got out of it as a none-stack worker. I mean this genuinely.

Like I mentioned above, concrete statements as opposed to blanket systems about the books would lead to a more fruitful discussion.