I was curious what books you guys have or what you would recommend. I will be investing in a lot of books this fall. I'm interested in great books that you really have to know about in order to find them. Mainly I'm interested in card magic, but other suggestions are very welcome. Thanks in advance!
Some books I'm planning on buying:
Books recommended by Jason England on the download here at T11.
Tarbell Course
Carnicopia
Card Fictions
I can't help but see this as a contradiction in terms. . . wanting those rare titles about magic but wanting to focus mainly on Card Tricks.
My comment is partly humor but there is a truth to it and not just my personal bias against playing cards (they are over-used and responsible for a tremendous lack of education when it comes to being a more rounded magical performer). Card tricks are an addiction for the most part because you have an inexpensive vehicle through which you can present thousands of neat manifestations. . . the Thump Tip & Swami do the same thing but you'd be hard-pressed to find much more than a dozen books focusing on either, same going for a very long list of other magical skills & resources that our internet age has cost the whole of magic in that we no longer have those crusty old codgers in the physical magic shops pushing us along a path that will actually make us MAGICIANS vs. tricksters -- individuals that can do magic with just about anything they are handed vs. asking for a deck of cards or worse, constantly carrying a deck on their person.
Please don't get me wrong, when in the right hands I've seen card magic that is absolutely mind blowing; Max Maven and Martin Nash both have destroyed my mind using my deck under "impromptu" scenarios. They are however, the exception to the general rule; exceptions I believe, because they both studied other aspects of magic or more specifically, slight of hand. So my prescription for you (anyone) would be to spend a few months vested into Bobo, the older "encyclopedic" collections such as the Rice Silk & Dove Magic Series, the Encyc. of Rope Magic and so on.
The other area you probably should put some time and effort towards includes the Stein & Dey Magic & Showmanship as well as the Henry Hay Handbook of Magic, two unsung heroes of the distant past (used to be required reading when I was a kid). But follow this up with an in-depth study of the Tarbell Course in Magic.
No, none of these titles are all so secret or exclusive and yet I can lay money on the table that people who own those books, young & old alike, haven't an inkling as to how many wonderful gems they contain that any serious student of the legerdemain, can up-date and melt minds with. Bob Jardine did just that about 25 years ago, when he started making Rubber Bands pass through one another while tending bar at the Magic Castle. . . a basic effect everyone ignored, yet it's in Tarbell.
Challenge yourself to become a Magician and then you can focus on one area of specialty. But give yourself the grace of learning about the greater whole of the craft vs. a myopic sense of vision.