Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks, and the Hidden Powers of the Mind [Kindle Edition]

Alex Stone (Author)

Book Description

From the back rooms of New York City’s age-old magic societies to cutting-edge psychology labs, three-card monte games on Canal Street to glossy Las Vegas casinos, Fooling Houdini recounts Alex Stone’s quest to join the ranks of master magicians.

As he navigates this quirky and occasionally hilarious subculture populated by brilliant eccentrics, Stone pulls back the curtain on a community shrouded in secrecy, fueled by obsession and brilliance, and organized around one overriding need: to prove one’s worth by deceiving others.

But his journey is more than a tale of tricks, gigs, and geeks. By investing some of the lesser-known corners of psychology, neuroscience, physics, history, and even crime, all through the lens of trickery and illusion, Fooling Houdini arrives at a host of startling revelations about how the mind works--and why, sometimes, it doesn’t.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Before reading this book, I thought magic was a little inane. The magicians of my memory wore capes and makeup; they pulled doves from their hats and deployed a lot of smoke. But in Fooling Houdini, Alex Stone reveals a world far deeper and more fascinating than I ever imagined. After failing at the Magic Olympics in Stockholm, Stone gets serious about the art of illusion: He attends magic schools and seeks out one of the best "card mechanics" in the world. Along the way, he learns how criminal empires were built on age-old magic scams. He studies the art of mind reading. And he explains how magicians exploit cognitive blind spots to make the impossible happen in public. He pursues every dark nook of the magic world in pursuit of the ultimate goal--a routine so mindboggling that it will fool other master magicians. Does he succeed? I'd tell you the answer, but that would ruin the magic. --Ben Moebius

Review

Amazon.ca - Best 100 Books of 2012

“With many fascinating anecdotes up his sleeve, Stone conjures an entertaining book.”
—Publishers Weekly
 
“Magically engrossing.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 
“Stone's engaging journey into his amateur magic career is as enlightening as it is disturbing. Not only does he reveal closely guarded secrets hoarded, in some cases, for thousands of years but he tears open the psyche of the archetypal magician. It mirrors too closely the geekiness, brilliance and single-mindedness illusionists seek to hide, even from themselves.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
 
“If you're not that interested in the secretive world of magic, just disappear. But if you're fascinated by odd little corners of society, Fooling Houdini is not only informative, but highly entertaining. Stone has pulled the proverbial rabbit out of the hat.”
—USA Today

“An eye-opening, irresistible journey into the world of magic.  Stone has written a masterful story that is bursting with energy, inventiveness, and a sense of wonder on every page.  I don't even like magic, but I couldn't put Fooling Houdini down!”
—Steven Levitt, author of Freakonomics
 
“An enthralling journey into the inner world of magic. Alex Stone writes with a winning voice that you’ll want to follow anywhere.”
—Joshua Foer, author of Moonwalking with Einstein
 
“Fooling Houdini is a totally smart and engrossing study of one of America’s most misunderstood sub-cultures.”
—John Hodgman, author of That Is All

“What I loved most about Fooling Houdini is the world it takes us into: these huddled cliques of obsessed magicians reinventing their art. . . . This book makes you want to do magic tricks, and convinces you just how hard it is to do them well.”
—Ira Glass, host of This American Life

“The story of Fooling Houdini is simply wonderful—as good as a novel, I think—and yet all true. . . . Stone is an engaging writer, but he wisely spends his energy, not on trying to dazzle us with his writing, but telling us the truth as clearly as possible.”
—Orson Scott Card for Rhino Times

“Alex Stone’s Fooling Houdini is a delight. . . . He writes with wit and scientific sharpness and grand humor. He immerses us in a fascinating world few have ever entered.”
—Buzz Bissinger, author Friday Night Lights

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 521 KB
• Print Length: 321 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0385667574
• Publisher: Harper (June 19, 2012)
• Sold by: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006O37LI6
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,498 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #6 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Magic
  • #11 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Puzzles & Games > Magic

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 74 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written and a fascinating book about the human mind May 10, 2012

By Jeff Wignall VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Like almost everyone, I've always had a somewhat casual admiration for magicians and their ability to make us believe things that we know can't be so--and yet we're seeing them without own eyes (or so we think). I love to see a good trick and I love to be fooled. And I've always believed that most magic tricks work largely because of the good hand skills of the magician and/or a clever amount of misdirection--and both of those are true. Until I read this book, however, I had no idea just how much of the misdirection and trickery was coming from my own mind. Alex Stone has written a fascinating book about just how much of the power of magic--whether it's a close-up coin trick or an ambitious illusion--relies on our own psychological/neurological foibles. We trick ourselves as much or more so than the magician does.

Stone starts off the book by telling the tale of his attempt to win honor and glory at the Magic Olympics (the pinnacle of magic competitions) and the various changes in his personal life that, along with a lifelong infatuation with magic (blame his father) eventually led him to all but abandon his "normal" life and pursue a strange and somewhat obsessed journey to the center of the magic mind. Along the way he spends time with some of the great legends of magic (a lot of them regularly hanging out in a pizza joint in NYC on Saturday afternoons), a handful of grifters, three-card monte ne'er-do-wells, a stellar and legally blind card mechanic (Richard Turner--whose abilities are legendary and will absolutely challenge your thoughts about blindness) and psychologists. Each of these characters helps add to his growing understanding of just how much the person being fooled is as much a part of the fooling as the magician.

Stone has a terrific writing style (I write for a living myself and I'm in awe of his easy and fun writing skill) and while the book drags a tiny bit here and there, I kept turning the pages to see what happened next. The book reads like a kind of Hunter S. Thompson road trip that, not coincidentally, involves quite a bit of time spent in Las Vegas. At one point you'll read how the author is ousted from his beloved magic community (and you'll learn just how inbred and dark that odd little world can be) and quite nearly has his life threatened for revealing some of the secrets of magic in a magazine article. You'll also learn why revealing things about how magic tricks work seems to only foster more fascination with magic--not less. (And personally, I've had magicians show me the rudiments of some card tricks and five minutes later I forget what they've told me and only remember being fooled.) And you'll learn just how easy it is to steal someone's watch right off of their wrist.

My only criticism (very mild) of the book is that Stone mentions many psychological research studies and similar background information without actually citing them by name, year, etc. The book would have more authority if he included citations. In other words, I think the book could have used a lot of footnotes that were not included. It's boring to read a book that is full of of footnotes and this is more a journey of personal discovery than a scientific overview, of course, but I still would have liked a few pages at the end that listed the various studies so that I could have read more about them.

As I said, Stone is a very gifted writer with a very colorful and fun writing style and he exposes a lot of the weaknesses of his own personality (only a very confident nonfiction writer will do that so readily) and this is a terrifically fun book. Even if you have never wondered much about magic or illusions, you'll never watch a magic act with the same innocent eyes again. And one thing is for certain: if you read this book you'll never lose a cent at three-card monte (and you'll keep your eye on your wristwatch any time you're near a magician).

61 of 65 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hidden World... April 15, 2012

By nashvillegirl VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Before I read this book, I had absolutely no idea that there was an entire "world of magic" that I didn't know about. My knowledge of magicians was pretty much limited to what I had seen at children's birthday parties and talent shows. Alex Stone shows you how there is so much more than that - there are schools, societies, meeting spots, ceremonies, competitions, and an entire segment of the population that is completely devoted to magic.

Stone makes the reader like him right away, as he describes the embarrassment of completely failing a competition. From there, we see him rebound as he comes back to the magic world, while pursuing an advanced degree at Columbia, and dedicate himself to improving his magic skills. He's able to describe different tricks to us without giving away secrets and impress up on the reader just how difficult it can be to learn some of these tricks. Stone also describes some of the ways that magicians use their skills in the business world, such as the magician who is almost entirely blind but whose sense of touch is so highly developed that he works as a "touch consultant" for a major card company.

More than just describing magic tricks, however, Stone also writes about how the human brain/psychology works and can be manipulated. We see how con games are so successful and why people are fascinated by magic. Additionally, Stone's writing style is excellent - the book is perfectly paced and the personal stories are woven in wonderfully with the history and technical descriptions. Highly recommended for just about anybody.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A map of the path to magicianship June 25, 2012

By J. Ott VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Alex Stone is a former Discover magazine editor, a former Columbia Physics PhD student and a nut for the world of magic. This memoir recounts his experiences in the magic world, including his humiliating 'red light' performance at the Magic Olympics, his discipleship with Wes James (himself a disciple of the legendary Dai Vernon), encounters with Three Card Monte gangs in New York, the furor over an article he published in Harper's which exposed the secrets behind some tricks, and his journey from close-up trickster to mentalist to master.

The title, "Fooling Houdini" comes from an anecdote about Dai Vernon, who managed to fool Houdini eight times with a trick called The Ambitious Card. Now the trick is standard, and every magician has their own personalized version of it.

Stone writes with clarity, drawing connections between magic, psychology, neuroscience and even economics, arguing that the greatest eras of innovation in magic tricks were the eras when the tricks were regularly exposed, forcing the constant invention of new tricks and sparking clever variations from other magicians once they knew the secrets.

WHO THE BOOK IS FOR:

Anyone interested in the backstage world of magic, their societies and the secret clavens within those societies. Magician's magicians. People who are interested in the intersection of science and the techniques of magicians.

WHO THE BOOK IS NOT FOR:

People who already know everything there is to know about magic, or who feel they enjoy magic the less they know about the art. People hoping to learn specific tricks.

OVERALL

I enjoyed it all the way through. Stone draws back the curtain on the magic world, revealing colorful characters and throwing in anecdotes from the history of conjuring as well as related scientific research. Highly recommended.

More About the Author

Alex Stone has written for The New York Times, Harper's, Discover, and The Wall Street Journal. He graduated from Harvard University and has a master's degree in physics from Columbia University. He grew up in Wisconsin, Texas, and Spain. He currently lives in New York City.