It's Monday and you know what that means... Monday Mail Call!
Each Monday (give or take), I use this feature to highlight a few of the things that have made their way in over the past week or so. Packages, purchases, and emails -- oh my!
This week's lot is a few books I happened to pick up from eBay! None of these were on my wish list, in fact, I hadn't heard of them until I saw the auction listings. I did a little research on them and thought that, for the right price, they'd be good additions to my collection. What do you think?
- Al Baker's Pet Secrets by Al Baker
- Paul Curry Presents by Paul Curry
- The New York Magic Symposium - Collection Three by Adam Fleischer & Steven Minch
- The New York Magic Symposium - Collection Four by Steven Minch
Each book shows signs of being used and, in the case of Paul Curry Presents, abused. Though, for its age (printed in 1974) it's in really good shape.
I think -- I'm not sure, so it's more of a guess - that only Paul Curry Presents is strictly card magic. The others have card routines and other things as well. Al Baker's book definitely has others, it says so right in the table of contents. With the Symposium books, just flipping through the pages show illustrations with coins and other objects, so I am pretty sure they're full of tricks across the spectrum.
Similar to not knowing about these books prior to bidding on them, I have also never heard of The New York Magic Symposium. I have done zero research on the topic yet (other than looking up brief info about the books), but when I get time to sit down to read them, I'll be doing some historical searching on whatever this big annual event was and how it was able to yield full books afterwards -- and, whatever happened to it.
Well that's it for today. Brief and to the point, just highlighting what I got in. I haven't read any of these books yet and likely won't get to them for another week or two. Hopefully my media-posting schedule will level out and I'll be able to do give a lot more details about them soon though!
Stay tuned for the next iteration of Monday Mail Call, there's a lot more to come!
Oh also, if you'd like to offer suggestions for books, tricks, decks or if you have questions about magic (performing, routines, sleights, etc.), just reach out here.