Art of Astonishment, new at books

[charleychacko]

The Art of Astonishment series are exceptional value, and the difficulty/skill levels vary from the most simple to fairly complicated. They're mainly card effects, with a few others thrown in too. For me, they've been a great introduction to real, usable 'other' (by that, I mean 'non-card') magic.

I work in a restaurant and there is an effect in one of the books that details an EXTREMELY simple effect whereby you place a washer in the top of a bottle (it's too big to fall in) The washer's hole is too small for your pen to fit through. However, when you wrap a £ note around the bottle's neck, thus covering the washer, the pen will slide straight through the washer into the bottle! Remove the £ note, and the washer is still in place, and it's still too small to allow the pen through! Brilliant!

Paul Harris' writing on his concept of magic and astonishemtn also makes for brilliant reading.

You can not fail to learn good magic from these books.