hi, i have heard and read a lot about magic book in this forum. Basically, it seems that the recommendation is to get:
1. royal road to card magic or
2. card college pr
3. Art of Astonishment.

i find difficulty in following books that teach sleights... cause i read "royal road to card magic" at a friend's place, and although i know things like double lift, i find it quite hard to follow. Maybe i am stupid or what...but i find learning sleights from dvd or video like daryl's video to be much slimplier..

i am looking more for self working card tricks or tricks that uses as little sleights as possible...so what should i purchase? I am thinking of AoA, but are the tricks difficult to perform? which volume should i start first?

How about older books like ed marlo's book or alex elmsley's book? are they more difficult to understand?
kindly please advise me on what books to purchase...thanks a lot.

Karl Fulves has several books on self-working effects. The Encyclopedia of Card Tricks by Hugard also has some self-workers in there. If you find Royal Road To Card Magic hard to follow, I highly suggest that you purchase Card College Vol. 1. It is substantially easier to follow with more illustrations. If you want to get far in card magic, you will need to start diligently learning sleight-of-hand eventually. I am still a beginner with about a year's experience, and I remember my first few months were spent doing tricks with gimmicks or some self-working principle and I'd have to say buying Card College Vol. 1 really got me started on doing sleight-of-hand card magic, which gives me a LOT more satisfaction. Don't buy AoA just yet. You could spend that money better buy purchasing either Card College or, if you really prefer learning from a DVD (i prefer books for my basic sleights, it forces me to really read into exactly how it's done, rather than copying what's being done on screen), you can purchase Kaufman's Basic CArd Technique or Daryl's series. As for Marlo's books, those might be a little tough right now. I'm not sure about the Elmsley books.

So yes, in short, Fulves has some self-working card trick books but you can only get so far with those tricks (they're great, no doubt) but if you want to eventually perform truly jaw-dropping card magic, you're going to need a good solid foundation in sleight-of-hand which is what the Card College series offers you. It also has a multitude of effects interspersed throughout to apply your newly learned sleights.

Hope this helps.

-Vincent

Vincent is right, full stop. Nuff' said

I say you get all of them....if you have the money. Encyclopedia of Card Tricks has TONS of tricks in it. I like that one a lot.

Yes, I agree. And a benefit of going through the old Dover books are that a lot of people are starting out more and more with the new sources of learning card magic that a lot of the "old" tricks in the Dover books can fool even magicians. And they're quite easy, except for stuff in Buckley's book and Expert Card Technique and Erdnase's classic.

A book I found with some great tricks requiring sublety instead of sleights is The Card Magic of Nick Trost. This book has some great card magic in it and is rapidly becoming one of my favorite card books.Check it out you will not be disappointed.
Rennie

These Dover books are great. There is enough info in here to last you a long time. You can pick this book up a most books stores for $10.00 I think. Try Borders and Barns and Noble.

THe Dover books are very Cheap and have allot of stuff in them.

I highly recommend Card College. I think it's a bit more user-friendly than Royal Road to Card Magic, and is probably worth having before getting the Art of Astonishment series. One of the most frustrating things I encountered when starting to learn magic was with Paul Harris' Supermagic-- it kept citing moves without explaining them. That's fine if you're a knowledgable card worker, but terrible if you're a newbie and don't know how to do a particular sleight. Get Card College. You won't regret it.

-- Frank

Please don't get me wrong,I'm not degrading you in any way but can you explain to me how you find RRTCM hard to follow?I've read in this forum that many people have the same problem.Is it the language or the description?
I read this book when I was about 8 yrs old.Most of the Sleights I know I would credit to this book.
But I do agree that Card College is a brilliant set of books-for the sheer amount of effect as well as the amount of sleights and subtilties.
Andre
ajcombri@telkomsa.net