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Author: Bill Shirk
Publisher: Lyons Press
ISBN: 9781592281961
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
The world's number one escape artist, Bill Shirk, divulges the secrets behind 25 of his most spectacular escapes.
Author: Bill Shirk
Publisher: Lyons Press
ISBN: 9781592281961
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
The world's number one escape artist, Bill Shirk, divulges the secrets behind 25 of his most spectacular escapes.
Author: Joe Posnanski
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1501137239
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
Award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Joe Posnanski enters the world of Harry Houdini and his legions of devoted fans in an immersive, entertaining, and magical work on the illusionist’s impact on American culture—and why his legacy endures to this day. Nearly a century after Harry Houdini died on Halloween in 1926, he feels as modern and alive as ever. The name Houdini still leaps to mind whenever we witness a daring escape. The baby who frees herself from her crib? Houdini. The dog who vanishes and reappears in the neighbor’s garden? Houdini. Every generation produces new disciples of the magician, from household names in magic like David Copperfield and David Blaine to countless other followers whose lives have been transformed by the power of Houdini. In The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini, award-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Joe Posnanski enters Houdini World to understand why the magician still enthralls people. Posnanski immerses himself in Houdini’s past and present, visiting landmarks, museums (including one owned by Copperfield), attractions, and private archives. Filled with false histories and improbable facts, Houdini’s life is an irresistible contradiction. His sweeping afterlife is no less fascinating. In rural Pennsylvania, a thirteen-year-old girl finds the courage to leave a violent home after learning that Houdini ran away to join the circus; she eventually becomes the first female magician to saw a man in half on television. In Australia, an eight-year-old boy with a learning impediment feels worthless until he sees an old poster of Houdini advertising “Nothing on earth can hold Houdini prisoner,” and begins his path to becoming that nation’s most popular magician. In California, an actor and Vietnam War veteran finds purpose in his life by uncovering the secrets of his hero. But the unique phenomenon of Houdini was always more than his death-defying stunts or his ability to escape handcuffs and straitjackets. It is also about the power of imagination and self-invention. His incredible transformation from Ehrich Weiss, humble Hungarian immigrant and rabbi’s son, into the self-named Harry Houdini has won him a slice of immortality. No one has withstood the test of time quite like Houdini. Fueled by Posnanski’s personal obsession with the magician—and magic itself—The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini is a poignant odyssey of discovery, blending biography, memoir, and first-person reporting to trace Houdini’s metamorphosis into an iconic figure who has inspired millions. Posnanski takes us on a joyous, thrilling, and, yes, magical journey to discover why Houdini endures—and what he still has to teach the world about wonder.
Author: Walter Brown Gibson
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486203840
Category : Conjuring
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
Written by the master magician himself, this fascinating work reveals the secrets behind how Houdini escaped numerous death-defying stunts and exposed a variety of fake spiritualists. He also gives instructions for 44 eye-catching stage tricks, as well as other fascinating material. 155 illustrations.
Author: Laurie Carlson
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613741952
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 146
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Book Description
&&LDIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LP style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"&&RIllusionist, escape artist, movie star, aviator, and spy—Harry Houdini was all these and an international celebrity and the world’s most famous magician. This fascinating biography looks at all the facets of Houdini’s amazing life and includes 21 magic tricks and illusions for a hands-on learning experience. Children will be inspired by this Jewish immigrant who grew up in poverty and, through perseverance and hard work, went on to become one of the most popular and successful entertainers of all time. Houdini was an artist who created his acts carefully, practicing them for years in some cases. He performed such seemingly impossible stunts as escaping several sets of handcuffs and ropes after jumping off a bridge into a flowing river. &&L/P&&R&&LP style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"&&R &&L/P&&R&&LP style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"&&RKids will learn how he devised his most legendary stunts and will also learn the science and logic behind many of Houdini’s acts including his famous milk can escape. Kids can amaze their family and friends with these simple, entertaining, and fun tricks and illusions: &&L/P&&R Stepping through an index card Performing an odd number trick Making a coin appear Mind reading with a secret code Making a magic box Lifting a person with one hand Making a talking board And much more &&LP style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"&&R &&L/P&&R&&L/DIV&&R&&L/DIV&&R
Author: Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara
Publisher: Little People, BIG DREAMS
ISBN: 0711259445
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
From the best-selling Little People, BIG DREAMS series, this book profiles the life of Harry Houdini, from his humble beginnings as a child living in poverty, to his transformation into history's most famous magician and escape artist
Author: William Kalush
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1847396194
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 998
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Book Description
Using exclusive access to newly uncovered archives, Kalush and Sloman reveal the clandestine agreements in which the British and Americans recruited Houdini to be an active secret agent. In exchange for his cooperation, the governments of these two countries facilitated his rise to the top of the world stage. The authors give thrilling accounts of his assignments, such as his participation in early aerial surveillance and his use of his own magic magazine to communicate espionage-related information. After the war, Houdini embarked upon what became his most dangerous mission when he took on the Spiritualist movement. Convinced that Spiritualist mediums were frauds, he became obsessed with exposing them. But the Spiritualists were a powerful adversary. An organized network of fanatics, led by Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle, worked relentlessly to orchestrate a campaign that would silence Houdini forever. Grounded in solid research, but as exciting and dramatic as a good thriller, THE SECRET LIFE OF HOUDINI traces the magician's long and circuitous route from struggling vaudevillian to worldwide legend.
Author: John F. Kasson
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 1429930039
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 373
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Book Description
A remarkable new work from one of our premier historians In his exciting new book, John F. Kasson examines the signs of crisis in American life a century ago, signs that new forces of modernity were affecting men's sense of who and what they really were. When the Prussian-born Eugene Sandow, an international vaudeville star and bodybuilder, toured the United States in the 1890s, Florenz Ziegfeld cannily presented him as the "Perfect Man," representing both an ancient ideal of manhood and a modern commodity extolling self-development and self-fulfillment. Then, when Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan swung down a vine into the public eye in 1912, the fantasy of a perfect white Anglo-Saxon male was taken further, escaping the confines of civilization but reasserting its values, beating his chest and bellowing his triumph to the world. With Harry Houdini, the dream of escape was literally embodied in spectacular performances in which he triumphed over every kind of threat to masculine integrity -- bondage, imprisonment, insanity, and death. Kasson's liberally illustrated and persuasively argued study analyzes the themes linking these figures and places them in their rich historical and cultural context. Concern with the white male body -- with exhibiting it and with the perils to it --reached a climax in World War I, he suggests, and continues with us today.
Author: Harry Houdini
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Spiritualism
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
Author: Jim Steinmeyer
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101486341
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 375
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Book Description
Here is the seminal biography of the magician's magician, Howard Thurston, a man who surpassed Houdini in the eyes of showmen and fans and set the standard fro how stage magic is performed today. Everyone knows Houdini-but who was Thurston? In this rich, vivid biography of the "greatest magician in the world," celebrated historian of stage magic Jim Steinmeyer captures the career and controversies of the wonder-worker extraordinaire, Howard Thurston. The public's fickleness over magicians has left Thurston all but forgotten today. Yet Steinmeyer shows how his story is one of the most remarkable in show business. During his life, from 1869 to 1936, Thurston successfully navigated the most dramatic changes in entertainment-from street performances to sideshows to wagon tours through America's still-wild West to stage magic amid the glitter of grand theaters. Thurston became one of America's most renowned vaudeville stars, boldly performing an act with just a handful of playing cards, and then had the foresight to leave vaudeville, expanding his show into an extravaganza with more than forty tons of apparatusand costumes. His touring production was an American institution for nearly thirty years, and Thurston earned a brand name equal to Ziegfeld or Ringling Brothers. Steinmeyer explores the stage and psychological rivalry between Thurston and Houdini during the first decades of the twentieth century- a contest that Thurston won. He won with a bigger show, a more successful reputation, and the title of America's greatest magician. In The Last Greatest Magician in the World, Thurston's magic show is revealed as the one that animates our collective memories.
Author: Tui Sutherland
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101640057
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 114
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Book Description
Every kid has heard of Harry Houdini, the famous magician who could escape from handcuffs, jail cells, and locked trunks. But do they know that the ever-ambitious and adventurous Houdini was also a famous movie star and the first pilot to fly a plane in Australia? This well-told biography is full of the details of Houdini's life that kids will really want to know about and illustrated throughout with beautiful black-and-white line drawings. Illustrated by John O'Brien.
