Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers [Paperback]

Ricky Jay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1998

A cult classic and a work of remarkable scholarship restored to print.

Ricky Jay is one of the world's great sleight-of-hand artists. He is also a most unusual and talented scholar, specializing in the bizarre, exotic, and fantastic side of the human species. The youngest magician to have appeared on television, Jay has become well known for his astonishing stage show as well as for his cameos in such movies as Glengarry Glen Ross and, most recently, Boogie Nights.

Jay's unparalleled collection of books, posters, photographs, programs, broadsides, and, most important, data about unjustifiably forgotten entertainers all over the world made this unique book possible. An investigation into the inspired world of sideshows, circuses, and singularly talented performers, Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women is history of the most unusual--and irresistible--sort.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A magician himself, the author offers a history of magicians and other performers, including animals trained to do arithmetic and limbless people able to play musical instruments. PW stated the dozens of illustrations alone "are worth the price of the book."
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

YA A historical compendium of the world's most bizarre and outrageous entertainers by one of the world's great sleight-of-hand artists. Reaching back into history as early as the 16th Century, Jay introduces readers to daredevils, mind readers, talented animals and their trainers, sword swallowers, and other wonders of the past. Some have been geniuses, others charlatans, but all have captured the imagination of their public. Although Jay handles the material unevenly, readers should leave the book with awe of the inventive genius of man, and of the incredible stamina of the human body. This is a delightful book for YAs who have a penchant for the extraordinary. It is full of colorful illustrations, posters, and billboards of yesteryear. Anne Johnson, formerly at St. John's School, Houston
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 356 pages
• Publisher: Noonday Press; 1st Farrar, Straus and Giroux pbk. ed edition (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374525706
• ISBN-13: 978-0374525705
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 7.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #977,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a catalogue of the amazing, December 2, 1999

By 

Al Kihano (Iskandria) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers (Paperback)

You've come to the right place. Buy _Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women_ if you want amazing stories, incredible histories, unbelievable accounts of some of the best acts of the last few centuries.

If I didn't know Ricky Jay's fine reputation as a magic historian, I'd think this book was a joke. The people and acts described are too outlandish, too impressive to be true. But I trust Jay to strike awe into me, and he does so repeatedly and without fail in this book.

The book's illustrations and photographs are marvelous supplements to Jay's smoothly written histories of performers--memory artists, dwarf magicians without arms or legs, women who walk into ovens. This is the quintessential introduction to this bizarre world.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ricky Jay is having a lot of freaky fun, February 7, 2003

By 

bensmomma "bensmomma" (Ann Arbor, Michigan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers (Paperback)

In Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, Ricky Jay takes on the history of oddball performers: men who claimed to cram their entire bodies into quart jars, armless ladies who could paint miniatures holding a brush between their teeth, gentlemen whose specialty was to enter large ovens accompanied by raw meat and exit (unharmed) with fully-cooked steaks, as well as mind readers of all sorts and species (human, pig, and horse).

Organized into chapters by skill by oddball skill, Jay is sometimes able to document such performers back into the 1700s by tracking newspaper reports, handbills, etc., many of which are reproduced in color plates and black-and-white photographs.

Ricky Jay occupies an engaging hole in intellectual space between enthusiast and academic. He is comprehensive in the extreme, but his writing style is anecdotal and he does not go for any elaborate sociological explanation of why such performers exist or what they `mean' to society. He just wants you to have fun, and perhaps to freak you out just a wee bit.

The book is also very nicely designed; its large wide pages lie flat and there are loads of remarkable illustrations. Definitely worth a look!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ricky Jay, Master Magician, Master Writer, December 12, 2002

By 

S. Smith "S. Marcus (formerly S. Smith)" (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers (Paperback)

As a magician and card wielder Ricky Jay is fascinating to watch as well as listen to. As a writer Mr. Jay also brings his own fascination at the work of others to play and writes a truly well-written, very interesting and enlightening book about the arcane world of many sometimes downright odd entertainers.

Thorough in his presentation of details Mr. Jay's book is well-researched and his appreciation and awe for these unique people makes us quite enthralled as we read page after page about performers such as Le Petomaine, with his unusual ability to produce sounds of musical quality from a most unusual source on his body.

Ricky Jay, besides being fascinating to watch, is also fascinating to read.