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Jan 07, 2009

Seizure Romero rated it:

It's so rare to have a book that I just can't wait to get back to reading. I always have a book with me (usually several in my car, as noted by certain friends of mine who can't help but comment on the apartment-like state of my vehicle), but then there's the one that leaps to the fore and all the other 'currently reading' titles are consigned, literally, to the back seat. Carter Beats the Devil is fun from the beginning. Gold has a knack for characters and for dialogue, and even the back story More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Jul 21, 2010

Paul rated it:

A friend gave it to me years ago. I figured eventually I had to read it, like you do. On page 67 I threw it at the wall. It's about magic, which is not very interesting to read about. Or to see for that matter. Magic is very annoying - it's not real you know, it's just a lot of tricks. I like it when they chop a person up and have parts of them in boxes spread around the stage - head there, feet way over there - but that's about it.
Likewise with Harry Potter, every one of which I've see More...

12 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2007

Hannah rated it:

This is one of my favorite books of all time. I started it on a plane to D.C. and couldn't put it down- I stayed up all night when I got there until it was finished. It's historical fiction in the best sense and touches on so many things that fascinate me: the invention of television by Phil T. Farnsworth (see "The Boy Who Invented Television"), the Secret Service (see "Starling of the White House"), turn-of-the-century magicians (see "Houdini!!!," "Hiding t More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 31, 2008

Treplovski rated it:

I just had to reread this. There have been damn few times in my life that I've laughed out loud, I mean the really gasp-in-amazement, my-god-this is-colossal kind of laugh, while reading a book. The how-the-hell-did-they-DO-that sputtering laughter reserved for CGI effects. Movies, TV, plays, that's the places you indulge yourself like that, certainly not in the solitude of your favorite chair with a novel in your face. People might talk. "What the hell's going on in there?"
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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 20, 2008

Gus rated it:

I liked the first half or so of this book quite a bit: three-going-on-four stars liked it. I liked that it was a historical novel (1890s - 1930s) in which the author didn't rub all his hard-earned research in your face. (The "I spent thirteen hours in the library researching fin de siècle wallpaper and by God I'm putting it in there" school of historical fiction.) The details were all just bruch strokes and placed just right. But the book gets sloppy by the end, going for a ridiculous More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 19, 2007

Ray rated it:

Glen David Gold's Carter Beats the Devil is something that's becoming increasingly rare: a novel about magic with no fantasy elements in it. But what makes the book truly remarkable is Gold's ability to make real-world stage magic just as interesting and amazing as the feats performed by that uppity British kid in the big glasses: even when the reader is told how the tricks are done.

The book gives us the tale of Charles Joseph Carter, a real-life magician thrown into a highly fiction More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 19, 2008

Andy rated it:

Great sprawling blockbuster about battling magicians that goes on too long. I liked it but began irritating me after awhile because it had that "I wanna be a movie!" vibe that also marred "Da Vinci Code" and "Kavalier and Clay". It's like the writer custom made the book for Robert Zemeckis or Barry Sonnenfeld to direct into a big budget movie. Thank God they didn't take the bait.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 08, 2008

Woodge rated it:

This is a thrilling, romantic, fascinating book and will probably be my favorite book read this year. Carter Beats the Devil is a historically fact-based novel about magician Charles Carter who performed in the golden age of magic (1890s thru the 1920s). This story pits Carter against rival magicians and Secret Service agents who suspect Carter had a hand in the death of President Harding. I was drawn in from the get-go. This book is full of suspense, humor, and panache. It came highly reco More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 10, 2008

Sarah rated it:

Bear with me one this one: a story about a 1920s magician who is suspected of assassinating President Harding after the president attended one of his shows. Much of the book is apparently based on the real-life magician Carter the Great, but the embroidering on character and detail is fascinating. The story is told from the point of view of a few different characters: Carter, the secret service agent tailing him, etc. Somehow the author weaves together the development of television, turn of t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 28, 2010

Simeonberesford rated it:

Yes it was obviously a first novel. Gold seemed determined to cram every bit of research, every idea he had into this. Its length came not from padding but from an inability to leave anything out. a more experanced writer might have held some ideas thoughts and research back for another novel but I suspect Gold did not know if there would be another novel so in it went.[return][return] I do hope he has enough left over for another [return]Neal Stephenson is the only author I can think of who ca More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 08, 2010

JackieB rated it:

This book is about a magician who gets drawn into an intrigue and is suspected of murder. It has a plot with lots of twists and turns because the reader doesn't know any more than the various people who are trying to uncover the truth about the murder. So your understanding of the mystery changes you learn more about the situation. It's like the reader is an invisible onlooker so you hear and see what's happening. There are various groups who are trying to find out what really happened and wh More...

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Jan 23, 2009

Margot rated it:

A delightful weave of history and fiction. The death of President Harding is interwoven with the life story and career of San Francisco prestidigitator Charles Carter, with unexpected magical disappearances and materializations. I highly recommend it, particularly for Bay Area folks, for the constant mentions of San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland in the 1920s.
Here's some of my favorite things:
Charlie discovers his mother's vibrator in 1897:
"Vibration is life: What woman More...

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Dec 02, 2008

Sara rated it:

Not the best. A magician named Carter the Great rises to fame in this novel, mainly set in the early 20th century, and is investigated by the Secret Service because they suspect he has something to do with President Harding's death. An okay premise, but my problem was in the book's execution.

This is a book about a magician. It should feel magical. It does not. It almost felt like I was reading a history book; not exactly what I like in a novel. On top of that, the storyline ju More...

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Mar 19, 2011

Sherwood added it

This book was a pleasure to read, except perhaps for the (to me) far too extended torture of the climax. But by then, of course, one cannot stop reading, for one cares desperately about the characters, including the animals. Gold's Carter is so good-hearted, something all too rarely encountered in too much of today's fiction. The characters are vivid, the structure quite interesting, the times well depicted (with only one or two tiny falters, the main one being the tiresomely ubiquitous "It More...

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Jun 10, 2009

Glen rated it:

Ever since I was a child, I've been fascinated by magic. The books I sought out in grammar school were ones that had magic in the title (Andre Norton's are the most memorable). I bugged my parents one year for a magic kit and received it for a birthday or Christmas present, I can't remember which. But I never became adept at performing tricks, preferring to be the fooled instead of the fooler. I wanted to believe in magic, to live in the world of imagination, and understanding how a trick was ac More...

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Apr 07, 2008

Evil_Dead_Junkie rated it:

A Conversation I had earlier,

Friend: "So what are you reading."

Me: "Carter Beats The Devil, it's about a master magician battling a shadowy conglomerate of the government, corporations, and secret societies to find the truth about president Harding's death with the help of his pet lion."

Friend: "... There's no part of that sentence that doesn't appeal to me."

There is a word for this book and it is awesome. A big thank

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 09, 2009

Jen3n rated it:

This book has everything: magic, pirates, lions, elephants, flappers, dead presidents, live kings, blind girls who can see the future and the man who invented T.V.

This is a very fine historical novel set in the first two decades of the 20th century. It centers on Carter The Great, a stage magician on the vaudeville circuit, and the death of President Harding. It's sort-of a mystery, sort-of a love story, sort-of a fictionalized biography, and sort of one of the most fun books I've More...

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Jun 27, 2007

Rob rated it:

Magic, thriller, period - three specific strands and together they make for a great book.

Set in the fictional world of 1920s magic, this references real people, such as Houdini, but the set-up is pure imagination.

Funny, entertaining, nail-biting and genuinely heart-warming, this is one of those books that not that many people have read, but should be recommended to everyone! I love it!

As a footnote, the author is Alice "Lovely Bones" Sebold's husban

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 08, 2009

Patrick rated it:

I originally read this book in 2004, right after Kavalier and Clay. Which did not bode well for it. Both books deal with magic and early 20th century entertainment, but Carter suffered from some plot contrivances and general hokiness that made it pale in comparison to Chabon's novel. Not to mention Kavalier and Clay is a "serious" novel with lots of brooding and metaphors while Carter is much more lighthearted and wistful. Which, now that I've read it again, I really don't see as a fau More...

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Apr 05, 2011

A rated it:

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Sep 08, 2011

Ape rated it:

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Aug 09, 2011

Katie added it

This is a book that will make me get a lump in my throat every time I think of it it. I think Glen David Gold is as good a writer as Philip Roth and that is really saying something. His work is similar because he writes about history in a way that lets you go back in time and live it. You are so blown away by the research that you are then floored that the could spin it into a story. This is a book about the 20s when vaudeville magicians were the most famous people on the planet (like Oprah or t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 22, 2010

Jessica rated it:

While this story wasn't about the type of magic that I'm usually drawn to (where witches and wizards rule, where incantations can tear the fabric of reality, where wands are instruments of thought), it was still magic, and it still had me captivated from the second that Carter started his campaign to beat the Devil. I found myself smiling and slightly in awe by just the descriptions of Carter's final act...and wishing there was some way that I could have witnessed that show in person.

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 02, 2010

Jill rated it:

This is a book I discovered in the dressing room of a high school theater we were performing in and requested from the library immediately. I was a few chapters in when I went to bed. When I woke up it was clear all I really wanted to do today was READ THIS BOOK. It's great. It's about a magician during the Harding Administration. WHAT? It was wonderful. I read it for a while while eating breakfast, then I went to the gym and read it on the recumbent bike, elliptical and treadmill. Then I went s More...

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Aug 23, 2009

Amy rated it:

This is another one of those books with a cover so intriguing that I always pick it up whenever I see it, only to put it back down after reading the description on the back cover and finding it not to my liking, then immediately forget that I was ever interested in the book at all, until the next time I see it, when I do it all over again. And so it goes, until finally I cave, due either to a sudden interest in the topic or to my suddenly realizing that I picked this book up literally hundreds o More...

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Mar 05, 2011

Rheo3000 rated it:

I wanted to like this book a lot, in the end I enjoyed it, but mostly I found it exhausting. Ten pages in and it felt like a complete story, so much had happened so why the hell did I still have 450 more pages of story to read? It's because we started near the end, which I think was a mistake, in fact this is probably the first time in my life that time-travel storytelling hasn't worked for me. I think this would have worked much better as a linear story told in order, building up the man, Carte More...

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May 31, 2009

Anya rated it:

My friend Elizabeth commented that the movie "The Illusionist" felt as if it had been made just for her, because it contained all her favorite things. I felt that way about this book. Magicians? Check! Foxy, slightly tortured hero? Check! 1920s setting? You know it! So the formula here was one I was really excited about--historical fiction about a real-life magician, Charles Carter, surrounded by a compelling mystery (President Harding died a few hours after attending a Carter performa More...

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Dec 03, 2009

AJ marked it as to-read

From Onion's Top books of the Decade

Popcorn fiction and historical fiction were both sneered at more often than not in the ’00s, as poorly written tales of the secret history of everything overwhelmed the bestseller charts. Enter Gold’s debut novel, a romp through early 20th-century San Francisco and the world of vaudevillian magic that makes few claims to historical veracity, and rockets along like the best page-turners. But Gold’s novel is about more than how a sad magician finds l More...

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Aug 15, 2009

Longfellow rated it:

After reading, I want to see the next magician that comes through town. Does this even happen anymore?

Found this book recommended in a San Francisco travel guide. Nice tip. Fictionalizes the last night of Warren G. Harding, but mostly focuses on creating a fiction version of the life of Charles Carter, a San Francisco based (I assume) magician in the early part of the 20th century.

There's solid craft in the storytelling, and I particularly enjoyed the light-hearted fun G More...

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Feb 10, 2011

Micheal rated it:

I fought this book for years. When it came out I was so excited I could barely contain myself. After reading the first pages I stopped because I was afraid that the promise of those pages could not be sustained. That the sheer excitement of those pages would lead to an ultimate disappointment. But fear not dear readers, I returned to the book at the recommendation of a friend and ran through it to the climax in just a few hours. Such was the intensity of my reading that I couldn't put it down. I More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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