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Loading... Here Is Real Magic: A Magician's Search for Wonder in the Modern World| 65 | 1 | 411,114 | 
(4.4) | None | "An extraordinary memoir about finding wonder in everyday life. Nate Staniforth has spent most of his life and all of his professional career trying to understand wonder--what it is, where to find it, and how to share it with others. He became a magician because he learned at a young age that magic tricks don't have to be frivolous. Magic doesn't have to be about sequins and smoke machines--rather, it can create a moment of genuine astonishment. But after years on the road as a professional magician, crisscrossing the country and performing four or five nights a week, every week, Nate was disillusioned, burned out, and ready to quit. Instead, he went to India in search of magic. Here Is Real Magic follows Nate Staniforth's evolution from an obsessed young magician to a broken wanderer and back again. It tells the story of his rediscovery of astonishment--and the importance of wonder in everyday life--during his trip to the slums of India, where he infiltrated a three-thousand-year-old clan of street magicians. Here Is Real Magic is a call to all of us--to welcome awe back into our lives, to marvel in the everyday, and to seek magic all around us."--Dust jacket flap.… (more) |
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▾References References to this work on external resources.  Wikipedia in English
None ▾Book descriptions "An extraordinary memoir about finding wonder in everyday life. Nate Staniforth has spent most of his life and all of his professional career trying to understand wonder--what it is, where to find it, and how to share it with others. He became a magician because he learned at a young age that magic tricks don't have to be frivolous. Magic doesn't have to be about sequins and smoke machines--rather, it can create a moment of genuine astonishment. But after years on the road as a professional magician, crisscrossing the country and performing four or five nights a week, every week, Nate was disillusioned, burned out, and ready to quit. Instead, he went to India in search of magic. Here Is Real Magic follows Nate Staniforth's evolution from an obsessed young magician to a broken wanderer and back again. It tells the story of his rediscovery of astonishment--and the importance of wonder in everyday life--during his trip to the slums of India, where he infiltrated a three-thousand-year-old clan of street magicians. Here Is Real Magic is a call to all of us--to welcome awe back into our lives, to marvel in the everyday, and to seek magic all around us."--Dust jacket flap. ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description
| Book description |
An extraordinary memoir about finding wonder in everyday life, from magician Nate Staniforth.
Nate Staniforth has spent most of his life and all of his professional career trying to understand wonder--what it is, where to find it, and how to share it with others. He became a magician because he learned at a young age that magic tricks don't have to be frivolous. Magic doesn't have to be about sequins and smoke machines--rather, it can create a moment of genuine astonishment.
But after years on the road as a professional magician, crisscrossing the country and performing four or five nights a week, every week, Nate was disillusioned, burned out, and ready to quit. Instead, he went to India in search of magic. Here Is Real Magic follows Nate Staniforth's evolution from an obsessed young magician to a broken wanderer and back again. It tells the story of his rediscovery of astonishment--and the importance of wonder in everyday life--during his trip to the slums of India, where he infiltrated a three-thousand-year-old clan of street magicians. Here Is Real Magic is a call to all of us--to welcome awe back into our lives, to marvel in the everyday, and to seek magic all around us.  | |
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As most successful magicians are, Staniforth is a perfectionist who works hard all the time at his craft. He tells of his early career as a magician and his triumphant successes and his monumental failures. He gives some history of magic, talking about how some of the great magicians influenced him, like Houdini. With all it's charms and warts, Staniforth walks the reader through life as a touring magician and what eventually pushes him to rediscover magic. His search, while seemingly aimless at first, becomes Staniforth's search for what magic really is, which is so much more that the performer; he finds it's the wonder, the feeling of excitement of the unexplained, and how it can connect humanity in ways few have ever written about The book is written like it seems Staniforth's mind flows, sometimes obsessively focused on a single topic, while other times he and the book seem to be unable to focus on anything for very long. Staniforth also does an excellent job of describing his travels all over India; helping the reading geographically following his movement, and describing the feelings the seem to be emoting all around him at every stop.
This is a book about magic, one man's discovery and society's take on it, but it is also a surprisingly pleasant travelogue of India. HERE IS REAL MAGIC leaves the reader thinking maybe he/she should go see a good magic show, but also that one's passionate study on a subject can lead to some wonderful things they didn't even know were there to begin with.
Thank you to Bloomsbury USA, Nate Staniforth, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! (