FOOLING HOUDINI OR HIMSELF?

Alex Stone's book "Fooling Houdini," has been reviewed and dicussed in many places since its publication including the various forums where discussion of magic takes place. In my opinion, no one sums it up any better than does Ricky Jay in his review for the Wall Street Journal. I won't spoil the punchline, but here is one snippet from the piece. Read the review in its entirety here.

The title "Fooling Houdini" is inspired by the great Dai Vernon (1894-1992), probably the most important sleight-of-hand artist of the 20th century. Although Vernon's reputation was in no way dependent on his being the called "The Man Who Fooled Houdini," Mr. Stone adopts the phrase in his title, though he inaccurately recounts the card trick Vernon performed. He concludes the volume with another miss-told tale about Vernon. Between these bookends are gratuitous exposures and numerous other errors, both of fact and of understanding. It would only exacerbate the problem to discuss all of them here.