20 Best Books For Magicians (2023 Update)

The new york times best-selling the magicians novels continue in graphic novel form as series creator lev grossman introduces the next generation of students at brakebills college for magical pedagogy.the new class starts here! long after quentin and his friends have graduated from brakebills college for magical pedagogy, dean fogg invites a historic new group of students to enroll– the first ever class of hedge magicians, rogue practitioners of unsanctioned magic. but the traditional magicians aren’t too thrilled to have the rule-breaking outcasts in their hallowed halls, and tempers flare as the student bodies clash to prove their superiority – not realizing a new danger has emerged to threaten them all. the malevolence behind the threat at brakebills will rock everyone to their cores – and even shock longtime fans of the magicians! new york times bestselling series creator lev grossman returns with an all-new story in the world of the magicians with award-winning writer lilah sturges (the magicians: alice’s story) and rising star artist pius bak that features the first appearance of the next generation of heroes and villains. collects the magicians #1-5.

This year, like every other, the magicians of imardin gather to purge the city of undesirables. cloaked in the protection of their sorcery, they move with no fear of the vagrants and miscreants who despise them and their work—until one enraged girl, barely more than a child, hurls a stone at the hated invaders . . . and effortlessly penetrates their magical shield. what the magicians' guild has long dreaded has finally come to pass. there is someone outside their ranks who possesses a raw power beyond imagining, an untrained mage who must be found and schooled before she destroys herself and her city with a force she cannot yet control.

Did you know that magicians are makers, too? behind every magic trick is a world of creative engineering and innovation. why just learn magic tricks, when you can learn how to create your own magic? mario will teach you diy magic that you can create using items found in your home. how to hack, recreate, and personalize them. this book: introduces magic tricks that can be done with household items. teaches you how to create your own magic. explores the skill of making effective presentations, presents magic as an amazing gateway to making. to get started, you'll need only what you can usually find in your home – items like paper, ziploc bags, index cards, coloring utensils, pencils, rubber bands, scissors, etc. book jacket.

With over 5 million copies sold worldwide of fingerprints of the gods, its new york times bestselling sequel magicians of the gods brings new evidence supporting hancock's thesis that a global cataclysm wiped out a great global civilization.on the heels of the very successful hardcover edition, hancock returns with this paperback version including three new chapters brimming with recent reporting of fresh scientific advances (ranging from dna to astrophysics) that substantially support his case.twenty years ago, graham hancock published fingerprints of the gods an astonishing, deeply controversial investigation of the mysteries of and the evidence for earth's lost prehistoric civilization. twenty years after this massive bestseller debuted, hancock returns with its sequel, filled with completely new scientific and archaeological evidence.since 2007, a host of new proof has come to light supporting his theories through new archaeological discoveries. he travels to a wholly different set of ancient sites, including gobekli tepe, and brings entirely up to date and exciting material to the table for fans eagerly awaiting more evidence in favor of the prehistoric civilization. and, even more intriguing, he proposes an answer to the one question he could not answer in fingerprints what caused this civilization to disappear. magicians is poised perfectly for what his fans want to hear as well as for ushering in a new generation of readers.

The ultimate book of magic for kids from a world-famous magician, complete with photographs for easy to follow instructions. from one of the world's premier practitioners of classic magic, with years of experience instructing younger readers in the magical arts, comes this new revision of his complete guide to learning and performing fantastic feats of prestidigitation. acclaimed by the los angeles times as "the text that young magicians swear by," it's full of step-by-step instructions. more than 2,000 illustrations provide the know-how behind 300 techniques, from basic card tricks to advanced levitation, along with advice on planning and staging a professional-quality magic show.

Magic, monsters, and mayhem abound when percy jackson and annabeth chase meet carter and sadie kane for the first time. weird creatures are appearing in unexpected places, and the demigods and magicians have to team up to take them down. as they battle with celestial bronze and glowing hieroglyphs, the four heroes find that they have a lot in common–and more power than they ever thought possible. but will their combined forces be enough to foil an ancient enemy who is mixing greek and egyptian incantations for an evil purpose? rick riordan wields his usual storytelling magic in this adrenaline-fueled adventure.

The magicians: alice’s story is an all new chapter set in the world of the magicians trilogy of novels by new york times bestselling author lev grossman that retells the events of the first novel through fan-favorite character alice quinn.alice quinn is manifestly brilliant, and she’s always known that magic is real. during her years at brakebills college for magical pedagogy, she rises to the top of her class, falls in love with quentin coldwater, and witnesses a horrifically magical creature invade their dimension. it’s not soon after graduation when alice, quentin, and their friends set their sights on the idyllic setting of fillory—a place thought to only live in the pages of their favorite children’s books—where magic flows like rivers . . . but in this magical realm nothing is what it seems and something darker lies behind the spellbinding facade. it is in the darkness where alice will discover her true calling and her life, and those friends, forever changed. acclaimed novelist lev grossman joins new york times bestselling writer lilah sturges (jack of fables), and breakout artist pius bak for a new chapter in the smash hit trilogy the magicians.

Adventures of a kid magician is zach's private journal, detailing how magic gets zach both into and out of trouble as he learns life lessons! along with zach's thrilling stories and eye-catching sketches, each adventure comes with a secret magic code that will take you to an exclusive online video of the actual magic tricks used in the adventure! you too will experience the excitement of fooling and impressing your friends with top magician justin flom's creative instruction.

The magician's companion by bill whitcomb is the most complete collection of practical information on magical systems from around the world you can add to your magical techniques. it begins with a complete introduction to magic, from definitions to a program of study so you can use the many systems described in the book. there are 91 systems described, including: ·the four worlds of the hopi ·the hindu tattwas ·the chinese five elements ·the chakras ·the eight chinese trigrams ·the qabalistic tree of life ·astrology ·the meridians of acupuncture ·geomantic symbols ·the druid tree alphabet ·the enochian system ·the runes ·the color scales ·the hexagrams of the i ching ·the 72 names of god there is so much more in this book. you'll also learn the techniques of working with: ·alchemy ·magical alphabets ·deities from numerous pantheons ·telesmatic images ·magic squares and sigils ·attributions for gems and minerals this just scratches the surface of what has been acclaimed as one of the greatest research tools ever for magicians of all type. the magical knowledge of our ancestors comprises an intricate and elegant technology of the mind and imagination. the magician's companion makes the ancient systems accessible, understandable, and useful to modern magicians by categorizing and cross-referencing the major magical symbol systems. in fact, as a cross-reference, it is simply beyond compare. the magician's companion is the single source with the most complete information on eastern and western magical systems ever published. students of mysticism, mythology, symbolic art, literature, and even cryptography will find the magician's companion of infinite value. this book is a must.

The entire #1 new york times bestselling trilogy that inspired syfy's the magicians, now available in a gorgeous boxed set, including the magicians, the magician king, and the magician's land this beautiful boxed set makes a perfect gift for readers of the beloved fantasy series praised by george r. r. martin, junot díaz, and erin morgenstern. the magicians 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 may 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 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. the magician kingquentin 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. the magician's landquentin coldwater has lost everything. he has been cast out of fillory, the secret magical world of his childhood dreams that he once ruled. 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. meanwhile, the magical barriers that keep fillory safe are failing, and barbarians from the north have invaded. eliot and janet, the rulers of fillory, embark on a final quest to save their beloved world, only to discover a situation far more complex–and far more dire–than anyone had envisioned. along with plum, a brilliant young magician with a dark secret of her own, quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. his new life takes him back to old haunts, like antarctica and the neitherlands, and old friends he thought were lost forever. the magician's land is an intricate and fantastical thriller, 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.

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. clubquentin 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.

In this “ bewitching” (the new york times book review) novel that traces a centuries-old curse to its source, beloved author alice hoffman unveils the story of maria owens, accused of witchcraft in salem, and matriarch of a line of the amazing owens women and men featured in practical magic and the rules of magic.where does the story of the owens bloodline begin? with maria owens, in the 1600s, when she’s abandoned in a snowy field in rural england as a baby. under the care of hannah owens, maria learns about the “nameless arts.” hannah recognizes that maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows. it is here that she learns her first important lesson: always love someone who will love you back. when maria is abandoned by the man who has declared his love for her, she follows him to salem, massachusetts. here she invokes the curse that will haunt her family. and it’s here that she learns the rules of magic and the lesson that she will carry with her for the rest of her life. love is the only thing that matters. magic lessons is a “heartbreaking and heart-healing” (bookpage) celebration of life and love and a showcase of alice hoffman’s masterful storytelling.

Mind reading, thought transmission, prophecy, miracle slate routines, and other psychic effects are among the most impressive tricks in any magician's repertoire. their power to amaze and dumbfound an audience is unparalleled in the domain of stage magic. in this volume, one of the greatest of all mental magicians reveals the secrets behind nearly 200 astonishing feats of mental magic.the routines encompass 12 major categories: effects with billets and pellets; envelope necromancy; publicity effects; miracle slate routines; dead or alive; money mentalism; book tests; blindfold reading; thought foretold; mentalism with cards; miscellaneous mental masterpieces; and psychic codes.theodore annemann, through his own performances and editorship of jinx magazine, probably did more than anyone else to popularize this branch of entertainment. now, his extensive knowledge, experience, and know-how are at your fingertips in this comprehensive collection. here are the closely guarded tricks of the trade behind such astonishing effects as pseudo-psychometry, one of the greatest one-man psychic effects ever achieved; who killed mr. x? — a classic routine that combines both magic and mind reading with a triple mystery and a novel presentation; and the swami test, a demonstration of prophecy first popularized around 1920. annemann himself came up with some 16 variations on this popular and much-practiced effect. my own swami test is one of his best.these and scores of other crowd-pleasers are here, each thoroughly explained and diagrammed, with insiders' tips on techniques, staging, patter, plants and confederates, diversions — everything you need to make any trick a foolproof success. no special equipment is required; just traditional magic props and a willingness to learn from one of magic's legendary figures. although written for professional magicians, the step-by-step detail, clarity and inclusiveness of this collection, along with the author's intimate knowledge of the stage performer's needs, make this a volume that will benefit magicians at every level of expertise.

*25th anniversary edition*—with an introduction by the author! the owens sisters confront the challenges of life and love in this bewitching novel from the new york times bestselling author of the rules of magic, magic lessons, and the book of magic.for more than two hundred years, the owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their massachusetts town. gillian and sally have endured that fate as well: as children, the sisters were forever outsiders, taunted, talked about, pointed at. their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery, with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. but all gillian and sally wanted was to escape. one will do so by marrying, the other by running away. but the bonds they share will bring them back—almost as if by magic…“ practical magic is one of [hoffman's] best novels, showing on every page her gift for touching ordinary life as if with a wand, to reveal how extraordinary life really is.”—newsweek “[a] delicious fantasy of witchcraft and love in a world where gardens smell of lemon verbena and happy endings are possible.”—cosmopolitan

Like theatrical presentations, conjuring is an art of illusion. a magician skilled in the craft is able to convince an audience that he or she can read minds, communicate with the spirit world, make objects appear or disappear, and perform other acts of seemingly genuine magic. without having mastered the art of presentation or "showmanship," however, even the most competent sleight-of-hand artist can fall short in performance. with this in mind, noted authority henning nelms goes beyond the basics to show how techniques developed for the stage by playwrights, directors, and actors can heighten the dramatic effect of a magician's performance.in this instructive book, helms analyzes every phase of conjuring — from sleights, devices, and illusions to misdirection, controlling the audience's attention, incorporating "patter," and the effective use of assistants. of particular interest is a chapter on body language, posture, positioning and movement. also included are some 60 original routines — from simple card tricks to such major illusions as having the performer suddenly appear at stage center.indispensable as an instruction manual for novices, this how-to guide — enhanced with nearly 200 of the author's illustrations — will also serve as a lasting source of advice and inspiration for veteran conjurers.

Experience the fate of beloved heroes and notorious foes in v. schwab's new york times bestselling shades of magic trilogy together in a boxset with additional content bonus pull-out map included! kell is one of the last antari–magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel londons; red, grey, white, and, once, black. unofficially, kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. it's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences. a darker shade of magic kell serves the maresh empire–red london, as he calls it–as an official ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in white london and the court of george iii in the dullest of londons. after one such visit goes awry, kell escapes his home for grey london and runs into delilah bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. to save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive. a gathering of shadows while red london is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the element games, another london is coming back to life, and those who were thought to be forever gone have returned. a conjuring of light as darkness sweeps the maresh empire, the once precarious balance of power among the four londons has reached its breaking point.

The magicians: alice’s story is an all new chapter set in the world of the magicians trilogy of novels by new york times bestselling author lev grossman that retells the events of the first novel through fan-favorite character alice quinn.alice quinn is manifestly brilliant, and she’s always known that magic is real. during her years at brakebills college for magical pedagogy, she rises to the top of her class, falls in love with quentin coldwater, and witnesses a horrifically magical creature invade their dimension. it’s not soon after graduation when alice, quentin, and their friends set their sights on the idyllic setting of fillory—a place thought to only live in the pages of their favorite children’s books—where magic flows like rivers . . . but in this magical realm nothing is what it seems and something darker lies behind the spellbinding facade. it is in the darkness where alice will discover her true calling and her life, and those friends, forever changed. acclaimed novelist lev grossman joins new york times bestselling writer lilah sturges (jack of fables), and breakout artist pius bak for a new chapter in the smash hit trilogy the magicians.

The magicians: alice’s story is an all new chapter set in the world of the magicians trilogy of novels by new york times bestselling author lev grossman that retells the events of the first novel through fan-favorite character alice quinn.alice quinn is manifestly brilliant, and she’s always known that magic is real. during her years at brakebills college for magical pedagogy, she rises to the top of her class, falls in love with quentin coldwater, and witnesses a horrifically magical creature invade their dimension. it’s not soon after graduation when alice, quentin, and their friends set their sights on the idyllic setting of fillory—a place thought to only live in the pages of their favorite children’s books—where magic flows like rivers . . . but in this magical realm nothing is what it seems and something darker lies behind the spellbinding facade. it is in the darkness where alice will discover her true calling and her life, and those friends, forever changed. acclaimed novelist lev grossman joins new york times bestselling writer lilah sturges (jack of fables), and breakout artist pius bak for a new chapter in the smash hit trilogy the magicians.

The entire #1 new york times bestselling magicians trilogy, including the magicians, the magician king, and the magician's land, now available in one ebook bundle – 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 may 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 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. – 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. – the magician's land – quentin coldwater has lost everything. he has been cast out of fillory, the secret magical world of his childhood dreams that he once ruled. 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. meanwhile, the magical barriers that keep fillory safe are failing, and barbarians from the north have invaded. eliot and janet, the rulers of fillory, embark on a final quest to save their beloved world, only to discover a situation far more complex—and far more dire—than anyone had envisioned. – along with plum, a brilliant young magician with a dark secret of her own, quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. his new life takes him back to old haunts, like antarctica and the neitherlands, and old friends he thought were lost forever. the magician’s land is an intricate and fantastical thriller, 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.

"finally, a book that brings the art of magic into the 21st century!"—rick merrill, 2006 world champion of magic "every 10 or 20 years a book comes along that introduces a whole new generation to the art and craft of magic. this is it!"—stan allen, editor-in-chief of magic magazinethe book: a book of powerful secrets. how to master the art of direction. perfect the sid lorraine force, essential to card tricks. harness pateo to read minds. learn skills like the false transfer, palm switch, big-action-covers-the-small-action, and more. above all, how to create an emotional hook so that, in the fleeting moment when an effect occurs, magic truly happens, revealing the world to be a place of boundless wonder. dazzle your friends. impress a date like never before. confound your kids, or better yet, confound your parents. magic shows you how to master over 100 effects that are simple to learn and guaranteed to astonish.the dvd: included with magic is an entertaining 132-minute dvd featuring 35 effects performed and taught in great detail, with particular emphasis on rhythm and action and the nuances of timing and direction.the author: joshua jay was crowned champion at the world magic seminar in 1998, when he was still a teenager. he's performed and lectured in over 50 countries, is a headliner at the magic castle in hollywood, and writes a monthly column in magic, the leading magazine for magicians.