Fooling Houdini: Adventures in the World of Magic - Softcover

Stone, Alex

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099537338 ISBN 13: 9780099537335

Publisher: Windmill Books, 2013

Synopsis

Alex Stone, part of the underground magic circuit, is determined to take his lifelong hobby to the professional level, to reach the pinnacle of this bizarre world and become a master magician.

Combining his passion for magic with his studies in Physics, Stone takes us on a journey through a strange and colourful subculture of brilliant characters - a blind card sharp, street-hustlers, Las Vegas showmen and world-leading scientists - as he seeks answers to the questions about the limits of perception and the psychology of deception and decision-making. By pulling back the curtain, Stone reveals the principles and history of some of the greatest tricks ever performed.

About this title

Review

Amazon Best Books of the Month, June 2012: Before reading this book, I thought magic was a little inane. The magicians of my memory wore capes and makeup. They pulled doves from their hats and deployed a lot of smoke. But in Fooling Houdini, Alex Stone reveals a world far deeper and fascinating than I ever imagined. After failing at the Magic Olympics in Stockholm, Stone gets serious about the art of illusion. He attends magic schools and seeks out one of the best "card mechanics" in the world. Along the way, he learns how criminal empires were built on age-old magic scams. He studies the art of mind-reading. And he explains how magicians exploit cognitive blind spots to make the impossible happen in public. He pursues every dark nook of the magic world in pursuit of the ultimate goal – a routine so mindboggling that it would fool other master magicians. Does he succeed? I'd tell you the answer, but that would ruin the magic. --Benjamin Moebius

From the Back Cover

When Alex Stone was five years old, his father bought him a magic kit. Years later, in New York City, he plunged headlong into a vibrant underground magic scene populated by a fascinating cast of characters: from his gruff mentor, who holds court in a rundown pizza shop, to one of the world's greatest card cheats, who also happens to be blind. As he navigates this quirky and occasionally hilarious subculture, Stone pulls back the curtain on a secretive community organized around a single need: to prove one's worth by deceiving others. In trying to understand how magic fools us, Stone uncovers a wealth of insights into human nature and the nature of perception. Through his investigation of the lesser-known corners of psychology, neuroscience, history, mathematics, and even crime, all through the lens of trickery and illusion, Fooling Houdini arrives at a host of startling revelations about how the mind works—and why, sometimes, it doesn't.

Edition details

• Publisher: Windmill Books
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099537338
• ISBN 13: 9780099537335
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320