Conjuring

by James Randi

Provides the history of magic and discusses the exploits of some of the world's most notorious magicians

Genres: Magic, History, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician and a scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. He was the co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), originally known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP). He also founded the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF). He began his career as a magician under the stage name The Amazing Randi and later chose to devote most of his time to investigating paranormal, occult, and supernatural claims, which he collectively called "woo-woo".Randi retired from practicing magic at age 60, and from the JREF at 87.

Although often referred to as a "debunker", Randi said he disliked the term's connotations and preferred to describe himself as an "investigator". He wrote about paranormal phenomena, skepticism, and the history of magic. He was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, famously exposing fraudulent faith healer Peter Popoff, and was occasionally featured on the television program Penn & Teller: Bullshit! - wikipeadia

Reviews

[Damien · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read that could have been better.

James Randi is one of the great conjurors in history and often considered the greatest escape artist ahead of even Harry Houdini, and yet this book contains very little of him. Many of the best moments are when Randi describes events from his own career--interactions with the magicians mentioned, advice they've given him, etc.--and it's a shame there aren't more of them.

Further, the entire enterprise is hampered by Randi's insistence on not revealing the tricks. While it's an understandable decision, it makes some of his cryptic language about "improvements" and differing methods indecipherable and dull. Similarly, it leads to rather lifeless descriptions of the tricks and all seem to fall back on calling the effect "stunning," "amazing," or "startling." It makes it difficult to develop too much of an understanding of these performers when what we end up knowing is, "He makes a person levitate, and it's amazing." or "She turns into her husband instantly, and it's startling."

Still, it is a good broad overview of magical history that mentions every major magician in history and gives at least something of an overview of his/her life, career, and act. His balancing of those elements is not always perfect (some performers have their lives described with essentially no mention of their acts, which just seems incongruous with the book), but he usually provides enough of all three to get a good sense of each person. It also has beautiful pictures of posters and the artists themselves in performance throughout. Those pictures alone are enough reason to look through the book once.

All in all, it seems to me that it's really a book best suited to being a quick guide to magicians in history--if you want to be able to look up who Doug Henning was at an instant because you often confuse him with David Copperfield, this book will do that for you perfectly. As a straight-through read, it sometimes becomes difficult to follow its structure and repetitive in its explanations of similar ideas through multiple performers, and Randi's personal asides always leave the reader wanting for more of them. Worth a read, but just not as good as it seems like it should be.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I find magic oddly boring and fascinating. Boring because many tricks are repeated ad nauseam for show after show and most magicians simply add a different spin on an old routine. Yet magic is fascinating because magicians understand the intricacies and frailties of human perception and like athletes they practice to perfection their skills which in the magicians' case include deception. So magicians exhibit amazing skills even if what they are doing is boring.
I enjoyed this book because of the history of magicians through the ages, yet I found it dissatisfying in its refused to reveal the hows and whys tricks. The author mentions that magicians copied and modified certain tricks through time yet the details concerning these tricks are not revealed apparently because it would break the magician's code, but as Penn and Teller have shown, good tricks are still good even one knows how they're done.

[Ryan Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book about the old and today. But mainly about the old and some new magicians new.

[Andre · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent introduction to the world of stage magic. A little more interesting in the early days and Golden Age, loses a bit in the modern age. Never really gets too detailed about anything but it's a fine intro to the many magicians in history.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting overview of the history of magic.

[Billy Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great, concise history insofar as an armchair historian can give. It is really entertaining and very informative. It isn't a scholarly work, but it isn't meant to be.