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Loading... Big Secrets (original 1983; edition 1985)by William Poundstone
Work InformationBig Secrets: The Uncensored Truth About All Sorts of Stuff You Are Never Supposed to Know by William Poundstone (1983)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Big Secrets (1983), Bigger Secrets (1989), and Biggest Secrets (1994) are a trilogy of books written by William Poundstone. The tagline for the series is "the uncensored truth about all sorts of stuff you are never supposed to know." I purchased the book of Big Secrets primarily for the contents of Part Five, Chapters 19-23, about magic and psychics. • Chapter 19. David Copperfield's Dancing Handkerchief in a Bottle • Chapter 20. Harry Blackstone, Jr.'s Sawing a Woman in Two • Chapter 21. Uri Geller's Blindfold Drive • Chapter 22. Doug Henning's Vanishing Horse and Rider • Chapter 23. The Amazing Kreskin's Social Security Number I have a love-hate relationship with books like Poundstone's. As an amateur magician, I love to be in the know about magic tricks and illusions, especially the closely guarded ones as performed by such celebrities as Copperfield, Blackstone, Jr., Geller, Henning, and Kreskin. On the other hand, I hate it when someone writes an exposé of magic tricks or illusions for the general public, thus ruining their effect for everyone else. If you are not a magician or an aspiring magician, please do not read Chapters 19-23 in this book. Doing so will destroy the entertainment value of these tricks forever after. On the other hand, as soon as you think you know how a magician ticks, he tocks. There are more elusive methods for performing some of these effects than Poundstone reveals. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to SeriesBig Secrets (1)
The Book That Gives the Inside Story on Hundreds of Secrets of American Life --Big Secrets. Are there really secret backward messages in rock music, or is somebody nuts? We tested suspect tunes at a recording studio to find out. What goes on at Freemason initiations? Here's the whole story, including -- yes! -- the electric carpet. Colonel Sanders boasted that Kentucky Fried Chicken's eleven secret herbs and spices "stand on everybody's shelf." We got a sample of the seasoning mix and sent it to a food chemist for analysis. Feverish rumor has it that Walt Disney's body was frozen and now lies in a secret cryonic vault somewhere beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit at Disneyland. Read the certified stranger-than-fiction truth. Don't bother trying to figure out how Doug Henning, David Copperfield, and Harry Blackstone, Jr., perform their illusions. Big Secrets has complete explanations and diagrams, nothing left to the imagination. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)031.02Information Dictionaries and Encyclopedias American Miscellanies and FactbooksLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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