Looking for your advice on books that teach skills or techniques that overlap both magic and life in different ways. Not really looking for strictly magic texts, but you will see a few listed that I feel overlap a wider use beyond only sleights or trick-based approaches.

These are examples to help explain what types I am thinking of/have read so far:

Cold Facts Book of Cold Reading - Ian Rowlands
Rock Break Scissors - William Poundstone
Mind Performance Hacks - Hale Evans
Magic and Showmanship - Nelms
Magic by Misdirection - Fitzkee
The Monographs - Ben Cardall
Snoop - Sam Gosling
Secrets of Mental Math - Benjamin and Shermer
Into the Magic Shop - James Doty
Memory Mastery - Harry Lorayne
Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss
Statistics Hacks - Bruce Fey

Strong Magic - Darwin Ortiz
Approaching Magic - David Regal
Pretty much anything by Eugene Burger

The Alchemical Tools - Paul Brook

Kudos on your search and focus.

my Free eBooks offerings on lybrary.com meet that objective of "affect" as well as "effect," and the "why of things" rather than just "what" and "how."

Some of my "Presentation Series" go even further. I do not want people to purchase effect and routines without full understanding of the work required
for an impactful presentation rather than just "doing tricks."

I would suggest you also add some readings on neuroscience such as those by V. S. Ramachandran to update the material of older books based on wrong/incomplete
understanding of our minds work - psychological ploys, decision making, etc.

drop me request to ken@eversway.com with more info about self, and I'll send a copy of "Satchel of Secrets"

Also "Beyond Secrets" by Jay Sankey

Here are a few to try…

Real Magic - Dean Radin
Signs: The secret language of the universe
The Magic Way - Juan Tamariz
How To Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

Good luck in your search.

Thank you all! Great suggestions!

"Our Magic" by J.N. Maskelyne and D. Devant

"The Psychic Mafia" by A. Spraggett and M.L. Keene

"Influence" by Robert Cialdini.

"The Golden Rule of Schmoozing" by Aye Jaye

Out of print, but available on Overdrive!

https://www.overdrive.com/media/58305/th......hmoozing

The Skeptical Inquirer -- a now-defunct periodical in which scientists did serious controlled experiments to test the validiity of ideas like astrology, "more crime at full moon," etc.

Fads and Fallacies in the name of science -- Martin Gardner. Another entertaining debunking of psedudo-science.

Mathematics, Magic, and Mystery -- Martin Gardner. Lots of charming, off-beat tricks based on mathematical principles, with some interesting history.

Any of Gardner's collecctions from his "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American. Gardner was a Rennaisance man: a highly respected creator of magic tricks, a mathematician, philospher...

Many of Roberto Giobbi's books, e. g., Secret Agenda

Two authors who, in very different ways, ponder the ineffably mysterious nature of the world: G. K. Chesterton (best known for his Father Brown detective stories -- utterly different from the TV series based on them), and Jorge Luis Borges.

Bob

Perform by Tim Hannig
voted book of the year in 2020 here on the Cafe

:)

Anything written by Steve Spill. No other words are necessary.