Download or read book Magic Is Dead written by Ian Frisch and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2019-02-26 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the vein of Neil Strauss’ The Game and Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein comes the fascinating story of one man’s colorful, mysterious, and personal journey into the world of magic, and his unlikely invitation into an underground secret society of revolutionary magicians from around the world. Magic Is Dead is Ian Frisch’s head-first dive into a hidden world full of extraordinary characters and highly guarded secrets. It is a story of imagination, deception, and art that spotlights today’s most brilliant young magicians—a mysterious club known as the52, who are revolutionizing an ancient artform under the mantra Magic Is Dead. Ian brings us with him as he not only gets to know this fascinating world, but also becomes an integral part of it. We meet the52’s founding members—Laura London, Daniel Madison, and Chris Ramsay—and explore their personal demons, professional aspirations, and what drew them to their craft. We join them at private gatherings of the most extraordinary magicians working today, follow them to magic conventions in Las Vegas and England, and discover some of the best tricks of the trade. We also encounter David Blaine; hang out with Penn Jillette; meet Dynamo, the U.K.’s most famous magician; and go behind the scenes of a Netflix magic show. Magic Is Dead is also a chronicle of magic’s rich history and how it has changed in the internet age, as the young guns embrace social media and move away from the old-school take on the craft. As he tells the story of the52, and his role as its most unlikely member, Ian reveals his own connection with trickery and deceit and how he first learned the elements that make magic work from his poker-playing mother. He recalls their adventures in card rooms and casinos after his father’s sudden death, and shares a touching moment that he had, as a working journalist, with his childhood idol Shaquille O’Neal. “Magic—the romanticism of the inexplicable, the awe and admiration of the unexpected—is an underlying force in how we view the world and its myriad possibilities,” Ian writes. As his journey continues, Ian not only becomes a performer and creator of magic—even fooling the late Anthony Bourdain during a chance encounter—he also cements a new brotherhood, and begins to understand his relationship with his father, fifteen years after his death. Written with psychological acuity and a keen eye for detail, Magic Is Dead is an engrossing tale full of wonder and surprise.

Download or read book Death and the Magician written by Raymund Fitzsimons and published by Atheneum Books. This book was released on 1981 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Magician s Land written by Lev Grossman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lev Grossman’s new novel THE BRIGHT SWORD will be on sale July 2024 The stunning #1 New York Times bestselling conclusion to the Magicians trilogy A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS • The San Francisco Chronicle • Salon • The Christian Science Monitor • AV Club • Buzzfeed • Kirkus • NY 1 • Bustle • The Globe and Mail Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him. Along with Plum, a brilliant young undergraduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, a new Fillory—but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrificing everything. The Magician’s Land is an intricate thriller, a fantastical epic, and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It’s the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole.

Download or read book The Magician King written by Lev Grossman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-08-09 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lev Grossman’s new novel THE BRIGHT SWORD will be on sale July 2024 Return to Fillory in the riveting sequel to the New York Times bestseller and literary phenomenon, The Magicians, now an original series on SYFY, from the author of the #1 bestselling The Magician’s Land. Quentin Coldwater should be happy. He escaped a miserable Brooklyn childhood, matriculated at a secret college for magic, and graduated to discover that Fillory—a fictional utopia—was actually real. But even as a Fillorian king, Quentin finds little peace. His old restlessness returns, and he longs for the thrills a heroic quest can bring. Accompanied by his oldest friend, Julia, Quentin sets off—only to somehow wind up back in the real world and not in Fillory, as they’d hoped. As the pair struggle to find their way back to their lost kingdom, Quentin is forced to rely on Julia’s illicitly learned sorcery as they face a sinister threat in a world very far from the beloved fantasy novels of their youth.

Download or read book The Magicians written by Lev Grossman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2010-05-25 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lev Grossman’s new novel THE BRIGHT SWORD will be on sale July 2024 The New York Times bestselling novel about a young man practicing magic in the real world, now an original series on SYFY “The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea. . . . Hogwarts was never like this.” —George R.R. Martin “Sad, hilarious, beautiful, and essential to anyone who cares about modern fantasy.” —Joe Hill “A very knowing and wonderful take on the wizard school genre.” —John Green “The Magicians may just be the most subversive, gripping and enchanting fantasy novel I’ve read this century.” —Cory Doctorow “This gripping novel draws on the conventions of contemporary and classic fantasy novels in order to upend them . . . an unexpectedly moving coming-of-age story.” —The New Yorker “The best urban fantasy in years.” —A.V. Club Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A high school math genius, he’s secretly fascinated with a series of children’s fantasy novels set in a magical land called Fillory, and real life is disappointing by comparison. When Quentin is unexpectedly admitted to an elite, secret college of magic, it looks like his wildest dreams have come true. But his newfound powers lead him down a rabbit hole of hedonism and disillusionment, and ultimately to the dark secret behind the story of Fillory. The land of his childhood fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he ever could have imagined. . . . The prequel to the New York Times bestselling book The Magician King and the #1 bestseller The Magician's Land, The Magicians is one of the most daring and inventive works of literary fantasy in years. No one who has escaped into the worlds of Narnia and Harry Potter should miss this breathtaking return to the landscape of the imagination.

Download or read book The Magician written by Colm Toibin and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book, Critic’s Top Pick, and Top Ten Book of Historical Fiction Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, NPR, Vogue, The Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg Businessweek ​From one of today’s most brilliant and beloved novelists, a dazzling, epic family saga set across a half-century spanning World War I, the rise of Hitler, World War II, and the Cold War that is “a feat of literary sorcery in its own right” (Oprah Daily). The Magician opens in a provincial German city at the turn of the twentieth century, where the boy, Thomas Mann, grows up with a conservative father, bound by propriety, and a Brazilian mother, alluring and unpredictable. Young Mann hides his artistic aspirations from his father and his homosexual desires from everyone. He is infatuated with one of the richest, most cultured Jewish families in Munich, and marries the daughter Katia. They have six children. On a holiday in Italy, he longs for a boy he sees on a beach and writes the story Death in Venice. He is the most successful novelist of his time, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, a public man whose private life remains secret. He is expected to lead the condemnation of Hitler, whom he underestimates. His oldest daughter and son, leaders of Bohemianism and of the anti-Nazi movement, share lovers. He flees Germany for Switzerland, France and, ultimately, America, living first in Princeton and then in Los Angeles. In this “exquisitely sensitive” (The Wall Street Journal) novel, Tóibín has crafted “a complex but empathetic portrayal of a writer in a lifelong battle against his innermost desires, his family, and the tumultuous times they endure” (Time), and “you’ll find yourself savoring every page” (Vogue).

Download or read book The Magician s Death Hugh Corbett Mysteries Book 14 written by Paul Doherty and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The search for a coded book of secrets leads to dramatic repercussions... In Paul Doherty's The Magician's Death, Hugh Corbett's must decipher a book of secrets and keep in check rivalries, passions and brutal murders. Perfect for fans of Ellis Peters and Susanna Gregory. The monk and scholar Roger Bacon claimed to have seen many marvels of nature and science and concealed these in a book written in an unbreakable code. Sir Hugh Corbett has been instructed to organise agents in Paris to steal this Book of Secrets. They do so but pay a violent price and the French King Philip IV now wishes a meeting between the scholars of England and France to discuss breaking the code. Edward I has no choice but to allow the meeting to take place at Corfe Castle, which becomes a place of murder and mayhem. Young women from the castle are being slain whilst horrific things are witnessed in the nearby forest. The situation becomes more serious when two of the French scholars die in sinister circumstances. Corbett and Ranulf-atte-Newgate have to thread this maze of malevolent murder whilst trying to decipher the great secrets of one of England's most outstanding scholars. What readers are saying about The Magician's Death: 'Doherty's novel is written with a great flow, action and description and creates a vivid picture of the time and people' 'This is one of the best books so far...exciting and unputdownable' 'Murder, intrigue, treachery, a little romance, and lots of action combine to give the reader an excellent read'

Download or read book Life Death Other Card Tricks written by Robert E. Neale and published by . This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Magician s Assistant written by Ann Patchett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2004-09-17 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The Dutch House, a secretive magician’s death becomes the catalyst for his partner’s journey of self-discovery in this “enchanting” book (San Francisco Chronicle) “that is something of a magic trick in itself.” (Newsweek) When Parsifal, a handsome and charming magician, dies suddenly, his widow Sabine—who was also his faithful assistant for twenty years—learns that the family he claimed to have lost in a tragic accident is very much alive and well. Sabine is left to unravel his secrets, and the journey she takes, from sunny Los Angeles to the bitter windswept plains of Nebraska, will work its own magic on her. Sabine's extraordinary tale, “with its big dreams, vast spaces, and disparate realities lying side by side” captures the hearts of its readers and “proves to be the perfect place for miraculous transformations.” (The New Yorker)

Download or read book Catfish Lullaby written by A. C. Wise and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lewis is a town of secrets.The Royce family has been a plague on the small, Southern town of Lewis for generations. Caleb has heard rumors about the family his whole life, just like he's heard the rumors about a monstrous creature known as Catfish John living in the swamp. When the Royce house burns down, Caleb's father-Lewis's sheriff-takes in the sole survivor, a young girl named Cere. Caleb quickly learns the truth about Archie Royce and the terrible fate he had planned for his daughter. After a woman is brutally murdered, Cere begins to suspect that not all of her family perished in the fire, and she and Caleb set out to stop her father's dark vision from coming to pass. Years later, Caleb is the sheriff of Lewis, and the monsters of his childhood return. Now Caleb must fight to protect those he loves from Archie Royce's legacy, and his best hope may be a legend he's almost managed to convince himself never existed-Catfish John.

Download or read book Cold Enough for Snow written by Jessica Au and published by Giramondo Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inaugural winner of The Novel Prize, an international biennial award established by Giramondo (Australia), Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) and New Directions (USA). Cold Enough for Snow was unanimously chosen from over 1500 entries. A novel about the relationship between life and art, and between language and the inner world – how difficult it is to speak truly, to know and be known by another, and how much power and friction lies in the unsaid, especially between a mother and daughter. A young woman has arranged a holiday with her mother in Japan. They travel by train, visit galleries and churches chosen for their art and architecture, eat together in small cafés and restaurants and walk along the canals at night, on guard against the autumn rain and the prospect of snow. All the while, they talk, or seem to talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes and objects; about the mother’s family in Hong Kong, and the daughter’s own formative experiences. But uncertainties abound. How much is spoken between them, how much is thought but unspoken? Cold Enough for Snow is a reckoning and an elegy: with extraordinary skill, Au creates an enveloping atmosphere that expresses both the tenderness between mother and daughter, and the distance between them. 'So calm and clear and deep, I wished it would flow on forever.' — Helen Garner 'Rarely have I been so moved, reading a book: I love the quiet beauty of Cold Enough for Snow and how, within its calm simplicity, Jessica Au camouflages incredible power.' — Edouard Louis 'Au’s prose is elegant and measured. In descriptions of bracing clarity she evokes ‘shaking delicate impressions’ of worlds within worlds that are symbolic of the parts of ourselves we keep hidden and those we choose to lay bare. Put simply, this novel is an intricate and multi-layered work of art — a complex and profound meditation on identity, familial bonds and our inability to fully understand ourselves, those we love and the world around us.' — Jacqui Davies, Books+Publishing

Download or read book Julian the Magician written by Gwendolyn MacEwen and published by Insomniac Press. This book was released on 2009-11-07 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "MacEwen described what she set out to achieve as a "sort of powerful poetic mad half-abandoned prose somewhere between [Kenneth] Patchen and Virginia Woolf." Set in a medieval past that has distinctly modern overtones, the novel is about Julian, a young man who believes he is Christ. Wandering the countryside in a horse-drawn wagon, Julian learns "to suspend logic like a whale on a thread." He becomes a master of alchemy, performing "miracles" like curing the mad and changing water into wine. When his rapt audiences begin to lose faith, Julian must pay with his life. MacEwen skillfully implies a relationship between alchemy, miracles and belief, and the art forms she is engaged in herself, poetry and prose. What is the price the writer-magician must pay to engender belief in her audience? Is something true merely because we believe it? With an afterword by the author's sister."--Jacket

Download or read book The Masonic Magician written by Philippa Faulks and published by . This book was released on 2018-01-19 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Count Alessandro Cagliostro's sincere belief in the magical powers, including immortality, conferred by his Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry won him fame, but made him dangerous enemies, too. His celebrated travels through the Middle East and the capitals of Europe ended abruptly in Rome in 1789, where he was arrested by the Inquisition and condemned to death for heresy. The Masonic Magician tells Cagliostro's extraordinary story, complete with the first English translation of his Egyptian Rite of Freemasonry ever published. The authors examine the case made against him, that he was an impostor as well as a heretic, and find that the Roman Church, and history itself, have done him a terrible injustice. This engaging account, drawing on remarkable new documentary evidence, shows that the man condemned was a genuine visionary and true champion of Freemasonry. His teachings have much to reveal to us today, not just of the secrets of the movement, but of the mysterious hostility it continues to attract."

Download or read book Jesus the Magician written by Smith, Morton and published by Hampton Roads Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-27 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A twentieth-century classic, uncannily smart, incredibly learned."--from the foreword by Bart Ehrman This book challenges traditional Christian teaching about Jesus. While his followers may have seen him as a man from heaven, preaching the good news and working miracles, Smith asserts that the truth about Jesus is more interesting and rather unsettling. The real Jesus, only barely glimpsed because of a campaign of disinformation, obfuscation, and censorship by religious authorities, was not Jesus the Son of God. In actuality he was Jesus the Magician. Smith marshals all the available evidence including, but not limited to, the Gospels. He succeeds in describing just what was said of Jesus by "outsiders," those who did not believe him. He deals in fascinating detail with the inevitable questions. What was the nature of magic? What did people at that time mean by the term "magician"? Who were the other magicians, and how did their magic compare with Jesus' works? What facts led to the general assumption that Jesus practiced magic? And, most important, was that assumption correct? The ramifications of Jesus the Magician give new meaning to the word controversial. This book recovers a vision of Jesus that two thousand years of suppression and polemic could not erase. And--what may be the central point of the debate--Jesus the Magician strips away the myths and legends that have obscured Jesus, the man who lived.

Download or read book Tips for Magicians written by Celesta Rimington and published by Crown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After his life has been turned upside down by tragedy, a boy must enlist the help of his new best friends and a stray desert dog to find their small Utah town’s missing muse and restore magic to his family in this lyrical and hopeful story. Harrison Boone used to sing. His mom was a famous soprano who performed in all the great theaters. But when she died unexpectedly last year, the music stopped for Harrison too. He finds comfort in practicing magic tricks to become a master magician. If only Harrison knew the right magic to stop his dad from hitting the road for a new job and sending him to live with his aunt Maggie in an art village named Muse in the southern Utah desert. The residents of Muse believe in a magical entity that used to grant wishes to the winner of the town's annual art contest, but the muse hasn't been seen in years. Can Harrison connect with his inner artist, find the missing muse, and win the wish that will give him back a normal life?

Download or read book Magician Master written by Raymond E. Feist and published by Spectra. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He held the fate of two worlds in his hands... Once he was an orphan called Pug, apprenticed to a sorcerer of the enchanted land of Midkemia.. Then he was captured and enslaved by the Tsurani, a strange, warlike race of invaders from another world. There, in the exotic Empire of Kelewan, he earned a new name--Milamber. He learned to tame the unnimagined powers that lay withing him. And he took his place in an ancient struggle against an evil Enemy older than time itself.

Download or read book The Magician s Death written by Paul Doherty and published by Headline. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Doherty's fourteenth novel in the brilliant Hugh Corbett series. Friar Roger's Bacon's book of secrets is coveted in both France and England, but the brilliant, controversial scholar has concealed his discoveries behind a mystifying code. When Sir Hugh Corbett, spy master to King Edward I, instructs his agents to prise the book from its hiding-place in Paris, they succeed only at a violent and bloody cost. A meeting between the scholars of both countries is demanded by Philip IV of France to discuss whether the code can ever be broken, and Edward, bound by his recent peace treaty with Philip, is forced to agree. The meeting takes place at Corfe Castle, which soon becomes a place of murder, mystery and mayhem. Young women from the castle are being slain and then two of the French scholars die in sinister circumstances. Corbett has to thread this murderous maze, whilst at the same time, trying to decipher the secrets of one of England's greatest scholars.