Sooner or later, whether it be tomorrow, months, or even years from now-- as long as you're a magician, you're going to need these books. Plain and simple.
A few of my personal favorites:
Counterfeit Spectator
A dollar bill is borrowed and examined from someone in the audience. Attention is subtly called to the two signatures on the bill: the Treasurer of the United States and the Secretary of the Treasury. Although the magician never met the bill's owner before, he visually morphs one of the names into the spectator's own signature! This effect was popularized when it was performed by David Blaine in Frozen in Time.
Paper Chase
A napkin is borrowed, torn into quarters, and rolled into four paper balls. These paper balls travel invisibly from hand to hand across the table until they impossibly assemble under the spectator's palm. The magician proceeds to restore all four pieces together into the original untorn napkin.
Las Vegas Leaper
A packet of twenty cards is divided into two packets of ten. They are given to two spectators who recount and confirm the number of cards in their hands. The magician never even comes close to the spectators or touches the cards. He asks someone to think of a number between one and five. Suppose they say three. Three cards impossibly floy from one spectator's packet to the other.
Deep Thought
A deck is shuffled by the spectator. The performer outjogs one card and commits himself to his prediction. He asks the spectator to randomly think of any card in the deck and say it aloud. Without any funny moves or switches, the deck is lowered to reveal the named card outjogged in the deck.
There are so many creative plots in these books. A lot of the material has been used by some of the most prolific names in the industry: David Blaine, David Copperfield, Marco Tempest, etc. You'll find many of these effects familiar and you'll be surprised to see so much quality within a single source. These books were among the wisest investments I ever made in magic, and the magic therein comprise the vast majority of my current working repertoire.
RS.
