Issue 3 | 25th May 2025

The “Hardest” Book We’ve Ever Published,
why it took us FOURTEEN years to release ebooks & The Retreat goes to Mexico and Greece

JOSH: Talk About Tricks is, pound for pound, the largest project we’ve ever published. And in terms of sheer workload, it was also probably the “hardest” to produce. The two-volume set contains 868 tricks, collected from twelve years of my column in MAGIC Magazine. It’s heavy enough to break two toes if you drop it on yourself. (I’ve done the calculus on this; you see, I did drop J.K. Hartman’s Cardcraft–700 pages–on my foot in high school, and it broke my little toe. That book is significantly smaller than Talk About Tricks–1300 pages, which is made even heavier by the slipcase it comes with. So I think it’s fair to say you could break at least two toes–possibly all five if you get the angle just right when you drop it. But I digress.)

These books are important to me; they are a snapshot of their time, and they feature the very best magic of my generation. Asi Wind’s “Time is Money” is there. Calen Morelli’s first published trick is there. Some of Danny Garcia’s best magic is there. And since I was traveling the world nonstop during that period, I was able to glean the very best magic from magicians in Japan, Norway, Denmark, Argentina, and beyond, with one-man issues. There are gems from past masters Larry Jennings and Brother Hamman. I believe these books are a tremendous resource for tricks, sleights, and approaches to close-up magic.

Talk About Tricks represents twelve years of my life, and my takeaway is this: describing magic tricks is an enormously important lesson in our own development. It forced me, month after month, to examine the structure of tricks in granular detail. I learned what a tight, intelligent construction looks like. I also learned what sloppy construction looks like, or what happens when a great idea isn’t properly fleshed out. I don’t know of a better way to observe this than describing magic in detail.

The only downside of writing Talk About Tricks was, at the time, feeling like nobody would read it after each issue had passed. Happily, this bound edition immortalizes the work of so many fine magicians and allows us easy access to it.

We’re running a Memorial Day sale, and while the physical edition is out of print and unlikely to be reprinted again, the ebook edition makes a lot of sense: you don’t need shelf space for such a heavy project, and your toes are not at immediate risk.

You can learn more about our sale, and this project, here.

Why it took us FOURTEEN years to release ebooks

ANDI: I was the hold-up. Josh and I toyed with the idea of releasing magic books digitally for years, but I hesitated each time we brought it up because I just love physical books so much. I design our books, and I take great care in the paper quality, the experience of reading, and making sure each design is matched to the magician it’s for.

Here’s what changed my mind: the undeniable practicality of ebooks.

The world has evolved, and now I do a lot of my reading in coffee shops, on trains, and cuddled up in bed. Let me tell you: you can’t read colossal books like The Definitive Sankey or Talk About Tricks on a train to London (unless you buy a seat for them).

And while that’s a good enough reason, there’s also a better one, for me. As our catalog has expanded, I’ve found a need to search our books more often. And so I built Discoverie, a way of searching every ebook in our catalog. This allows you to search the books you purchase by props or names or keywords, which is super helpful.

Converting more than 100 titles to ebooks was a monster job, and it has been met with overwhelming enthusiasm…even from grumpy physical book lovers like myself.

The Memorial Day Sale we’ve just launched features our ebooks at some of the lowest prices we’ve ever offered them. If you intend to study magic on the go, we hope you’ll consider this new option.

The Retreat Goes to Mexico and Greece

Our Retreats are our most popular events. We announce them and they sell out almost immediately (and almost entirely to our alumni). This is true of Mexico City, September 4-8, 2025. We’re going on a balloon ride over the Mayan pyramids, indulging in taco-making classes, and much, much more. Our guests will be Armando Lucero and Gregory Wilson. ONE spot (for an individual or couple) just opened up. If you’re free over those days and have always wanted to take the vacation of a lifetime, this is your shot. The first person to respond will get the spot.

Similarly, we have just one spot open for Crete, Greek Islands, our next international Retreat, May 25-30th, 2026. If that spot fills, you’ll be able to add yourself to the wait list. If you have questions, please reply to this email!

Andi Gladwin & Joshua Jay

Vanishing Inc. Cofounders

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