Mine was "The Secret Ways of Al Baker." Incredible amount of wonderful magic from a legendary performer and prolific creator. The book is beautifully produced and is one I'll treasure, read and re-read for many years to come. Kudos to Todd Karr!
DaveS

Mine is "Card Fictions" by Pit Hartling. I hardly buy any "card books" but this one is an exception.

My votes go for Darwin Ortiz's Scams & Fantasies with Cards.

One hell of a book!

Ronnie Lemieux
Montreal
Canada

Another vote for the Al Baker book.
Goes into my top 10 of all time.

I'll go along with the Baker book.

Mine too is "Card Fictions" by Pit Hartling. This book is too good to be published!! The stuff in here is sooo killer!

Thanks for the recommendation of "The Secret Ways of Al Baker". Sounds like this will end up being my favorite book read in 2004!

I have the Al Baker book, and it is wonderful, but my favorite of 2003 is Mystery School. It is a wonderful collection of essays, effects, and solid thinking. It's as beautifully produced as the Baker book too. Todd Karr at the Miracle Factory is kicking some serious butt when it comes to publishing these days.

Was the Art of Astonishment published in 2003?..think not..

Yet another vote for Al Baker, simply the very best book of 2003.

Add me to the list of Card Fiction voters. How all magic books should be done. It even had a built in book mark for cryin out loud

How many of pit's 7 tricks require a faro shuffle?

'Building Blocks' by Luke Jermay.

Whitehead, if you come with that attiude to his book you miss the point. there is one effect there that uses a faro shuffleS (more than one) that blows people away - magicians included.
he puts a lot of effort on presentation and it shows.
it is also a relatively cheap book for what is inside.

The trick (description from Pit's website) that most intrigues me is:
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"Triple Countdown - The most “impossible” piece in the book: Three selected cards are found at three named positions under impossible conditions: The performer never touches the deck after the numbers are named, the spectators can change their numbers up to the last moment and -as usual- Triple Countdown is performed with a borrowed shuffled deck."
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Without giving the method away, can anyone comment on the degree of difficulty (i.e., sleights)? Based solely on the description, this effect alone could easily be worth the price of the book (and then some).
Thanks,
DaveS

Nir, I ordered the book before the question was answered. I wanted to know about the faro question because I prefer to do tricks that don't require one. this does not mean that I shy away from it, I can actually do a faro but it is not yet perfect, I get it about 50% of the time now. Being able to do a faro is not the reason I do or do not get card books. I was just curious as I saw on another post by Stefan S. that Pit does a lot of faros in his work and I was curious as to how many tricks in his new works he included this sleight in.
Respectfully, David

I don't have the Al Baker so here is my choice:

Mentalism Inc.

A very helpful tome.

Add me to the list of Al Baker voters. A big amount of wonderfull magic.

Card Fictions

Well, guess I'd better buy the Al Baker book.

I REALLY have enjoyed "Tricks" by David Ben. I highly recommend it.