My airplane reading is Paul Daniels and the Story of Magic by John Fisher. This is essentially a book on magic history, with Paul Daniels added in.
I think it’s kinda strange how he’s shoehorned into all of the biographies in the book. It’s like, Vernon was good at card tricks, and Paul Daniels also did them. What I feel the book is lacking is Paul Daniels take on the topics of magicians.
One thing the book gets through, but it’s not clear if it’s Paul Daniels or John Fischer’s opinion and that one of them doesn’t like David Copperfield. I think I had read in Wayne Dobson‘s book that there was a bit of a feud between them at some point.
What I do like is that there are some very specific mentions magic history. Like who created the Sucker Silk to Egg routine that’s now a standard routine. I’m betting 99% of magicians who do the routine don’t know who created it.
If you don’t know it was Fred Culpitt, who also created the Doll House Illusion!
The book also attaches some stock lines to specific performers. I find this interesting, as the history of stock lines is very murky. Quite often they get credited to who popularized the line, and not who created the line. I don’t know how accurate the crediting is in the book, however it’s still great to see some of the history of a joke!
I picked this book up at Powell’s Books in Portland OR for $12 and for that price I’m happy with my purchase!
-Louie
