Well, the books are in stock, so let me be the first to request a review!

I already know I love "Joeljitsu", Joel's karate coin routine. I'm looking forward to the tips and touches he and Josh have added.
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This from Joel today:

Excellent! I pre-ordered, so mine should be arriving any day now. I'm really looking forward to this one!!

I spent some time with Joel last night and now have my copy! This book is full of strong magic and Josh Jay did a fabulous job getting everything into words and making the book a lot of fun to read. The book itself is simply beautiful and everyone involved did an excellent job in helping to make this one of the best looking magic books I've seen around. You guys are in for a real treat, back to reading!

Luke

Oh man, I'm really looking forward to this! Too bad I'll have to wait longer than lots of you guys as I live in Canada. Oh well, I think it will be well worth the wait! So anyone else have this yet?

Landon

They should be on their way soon, as I understand there was a problem early on with the printers (i.e. schedule wise). But Josh was promised them "anyday now."

Can't wait! And what a swell gift for pre-ordering.

RevJohn

I'm reading this and will do a review once I've gone through the material but I have to say this is one of the best magic books I've seen in a long time. Once again I had Joel mixed up with another magician (I do that with names) who does trade shows that I was interested in but I'm glad I messed up. The magic, so far, is excellent and stuff I'd use added to that Josh Jay (Josh, I'll say it again, I thought you were a great kid and you have grown into a man and met all our expectations, I'm proud of you) is establishing himself as a top notch writer. Based on what I've seen get this before it is out of print. Look for my review in a couple weeks.

I got my copy Friday directly from Joel ( joelgiv@aol.com )

It and FIVE FORTY SEVEN are beautiful, as everyone else has noted. Josh, Ben, and Stephen did a great job! These books are completely unique!

Had a busy weekend but will be reviewing a couple of tricks soon (I'm especially interested in "Ninja Coin" and "The Human Slot Machine").

Steve H

Guys I won;t say much other then this book is brillaint

Argh!!! Can't WAIT (!!) to receive my copy. The initial buzz has been terrific, to say the least.

The karate coin is just what I was looking for. I was close to buying eric jones that I hear is a fine version but joels handling is pretty smooth I must say. the human slot machines.... oh man prolly my fav. tons good stuff and fun to read!

Happy to say the remaining shipment came in and we were able to execute a same-day turnaround. ALL orders have now been shipped with the free companion booklet, Five Forty Seven. I hope you all enjoy the material. They should all be arriving very soon. Thanks, everyone, for your patience and support. Joel and I truly hope you enjoy the book.

Joshua Jay

Check out free excerpt of both books here: http://www.joshuajay.com/merchandise.html

I got through the first 1/4 of the book and I can honestly say I haven't been this into a book in a long time. The way the book was written and the content delivered within the pages makes this a book a will treasure for a very long time to come. The photographs and explanations make learning Joel's material a breeze to understand, which is huge for me personally since I usually have difficulty envisioning an effect from a book (or the photographs were taken from a poor angle or too far away).

Joel, Josh, Stephen, and Ben thank for this work of art.

--Jim

p.s. Cup o' Joel is simply ingenious....I cannot wait to get into the rest of the material as well as Forty Five Seven =)

I couldn't agree more with what has been said. Also, be sure to check out the heckler trick..it's a great effect to have in your repetoire so don't 'pass' it up.

luke

Any more reviews of this book, or is everyone so involved in the book?

I think everyone's so involved with the book... Just got mine yesterday (I pre-ordered from Josh) and started to look through it last night. Because of the way it's written, you kind of want to read it straight through, like a novel, rather than hopping to what seem to be the most interesting effects. So I think reviews will straggle in as people take the time to finish it. Wanting a quick fix, I jumped to "More Memory Man," which is the effect I think referred to here previously as the Pseudo Memorized Deck, and it seems very clever.

Title:Session: The Magic of Joel Givens by Joshua Jay
Medium: Book, soft cover
Arena: Close up
Available: Any shop, distributed by Murphys Magic Supplies

I’ll be honest, I did not know who Joel Givens was, I had him confused with another Joel, magic is full of Joels and Ryans it seems, so once again I end up being introduced to a magician I had no knowledge of. What I know now is Joel Givens is in his mid 30’s, lives and works in North Caroline, and avoids conventions and magicians in general. My kind of guy. What I also learned was Joel is very creative and performs excellent magic. Before we get into the book though let’s take a look at the production quality of the book and its companion book. The book is soft covered but is very well produced with heavy duty high quality paper. It was built to last and has a book cover. The photography in the book, no illustrations are used, is outstanding. Very clear, very crisp, they show what needs to be shown and were set up to compliment the book. I may be the only one to notice but in one photo the time on the wrist watch corresponds with the time given in the book for when the action in the photo took place….you’ll understand later what that means. I purchased another soft covered magic book the same day and let me tell you, the two do not come close in quality, this is a well made book.

Josh Jay, as everyone should know, has earned a place in the hierarchy of magicians who are also writers. This is his biggest effort to date that I’ve seen and I’m extremely impressed. The style of the book itself is very interesting in that it is written as a narrative with magic inserted into it. Let me try to explain how this works. The idea is that the book was written in a single evening at a bar and recounts the meeting of Josh and Joel as they have dinner then stay in the bar talking to each other and Joel doing magic. During the evening they encounter other characters from bartenders and waitresses to friendly party girls and drunk hecklers. The magic is often based on these encounters, fictional by the way, and after the magic is performed and you’ve seen what let up to the performance and a description of the performance the effect will be explained. Before getting to the tricks taught I want to say that I found this to be an extremely entertaining book and I really enjoyed the format. This is, in my opinion, much more fun to read than the ‘recipe’ magic books that we normally encounter and the narrative itself gives a lot of insight to the magic that is to come. I also like books with biography storylines, which is why Wise Guy is one of my favorite books to just read. I applaud Josh for taking this path and I think it presented Joel and his magic in an extremely positive light. I think others may want to consider this style of writing but I doubt many can pull it off as well as Josh has.

The magic is pretty strong across the board here. One think I liked is just because a routine is given Josh doesn’t claim everything is the end all and be all of magic. If he feels a routine, such as the Triumph, isn’t as good in some aspects as others he says it and I appreciate him for that. It reflects honesty. While the majority of the work is card magic there are some coin routines tossed in as well. There are also some excellent ‘impromptu’, meaning magic that one is prepared to do but waiting for the opportunity, magic that could be done at restaurants and bars. The companion volume ‘Five Forty Seven’ also has some good material in it. Since the format of the book is different than other magic books you won’t find a traditional index like in the recipe magic books. At the end of the book is an ‘end notes’, which is outstanding and well done, a Trick Index, that shows you the trick, a short description, and the page you can find it, and the a Master Index that breaks things down like a traditional index. The end notes are great at finding other books to look deeper into moves or sleights, things like that, while the Trick Index is a great way to find tricks you want to go back to and go over. The book reads like a book so this index will be a great time saver. Good thinking by Josh, again.

The descriptions are very clearly done yet you need to bring some knowledge with you to perform all the material. Josh, thankfully, doesn’t reference some obscure sleight and assumes everyone owns the 1867 issue of The Blue Wizard journal that only published three copies and one copy exist and that is in the collection of Josh Jay, the sleights are described enough to do them if you know your way around a deck of cards. I’ll only go over some of my favorite tricks but just if I omit something it just means I don’t want this to run five pages long and I could do that if I went over every routine I liked. There are 39 effects or sleights in the main book and another none in the companion book.

Sweet Straw: A stirrer is pulled from a pack of sweetner and then the stirrer is shrunk down and put back into the packet! I tried this, it looked great and shook up the manager at the breakfast place I pulled it in.

Cup O’ Joel: I tried this also and it worked! A container of creamer is opened and poured into your fist only to vanish. You say that you only used half the container and resealed it, which you show, and that the creamer vanished from your fist and appeared into your black coffee, which you then stir and it has creamer in it now! This looks very cool and it really works.

Silly Psychic: A book test with a very interesting method that made me think back to when I was a kid. I wish I had thought of this first.

Kicking Ace: Very nice ace production

Identification Cards: This plays huge for multiple spectators and is surprisingly easy to do once you know the secret. I like this routine and it will be a winner when you have a number of people wanting to do a trick with you.

Brain Cleaner: Don’t do it for kids but you get to shove a Q-tip into your ear!

Ninja Coin: Freaky magic the kids will love…I don’t mean kids you perform for but you street types who like odd looking magic.

Heckler Stopper: Sinister, evil, all that good stuff that is needed to put a heckler in his place while making you look like the innocent magician trying to let the heckler take part. Good one.

The Magidoodle: Very creative use of a modern toy that kids will be familiar with using old methods. Very strong if you let the subtle clues go through.

The Human Slot Machine: Very visual, very strong magic that uses common items in an uncommon way. Well thought out.

Hover: Make that deck look like it is floating!

Dave’s Proposition: One of my favorite bar bets and I’m not real happy this was put in the book.

In the companion book are other good items like forces and all that fun stuff, worth a look.

There is plenty of other material to be found in this excellent and creative book. I think Joel is to be applauded for his top notch magic and for sharing it with the community but Josh is to be applauded for putting it together in such an entertaining way. This is a very good book with top notch magic that you’ll use. I’d track it down before it is gone if I was you. Congrats to all involved on an outstanding product.

Got mine today here in Australia! So overseas buyers should be getting theirs soon if not already

Yep, I've received my copy as well. I've barely scratched the surface. Happy reading guys!

Haven't received mine yet, I am in the UK, anyone else in the UK got theirs?

Waiting here in HK, should be this week I would imagine.

Sean