Nate Staniforth

HERE IS REAL MAGIC by Nate Staniforth takes the reader on a journey of discovery of what is magic and why magic is important. Within the book, Staniforth is a successful touring magician, but finds he is starting to lack inspiration and his touring magic show is becoming less special and more like work to him, so he decides to go to India to look for magical inspiration and hopefully find his magic identity which he feels he has either lost or never really had. In India, he find some much more than he ever expected.
As most successful magicians are, Staniforth is a perfectionist who works hard all the time at his craft. He tells of his early career as a magician and his triumphant successes and his monumental failures. He gives some history of magic, talking about how some of the great magicians influenced him, like Houdini. With all it's charms and warts, Staniforth walks the reader through life as a touring magician and what eventually pushes him to rediscover magic. His search, while seemingly aimless at first, becomes Staniforth's search for what magic really is, which is so much more that the performer; he finds it's the wonder, the feeling of excitement of the unexplained, and how it can connect humanity in ways few have ever written about The book is written like it seems Staniforth's mind flows, sometimes obsessively focused on a single topic, while other times he and the book seem to be unable to focus on anything for very long. Staniforth also does an excellent job of describing his travels all over India; helping the reading geographically following his movement, and describing the feelings the seem to be emoting all around him at every stop.
This is a book about magic, one man's discovery and society's take on it, but it is also a surprisingly pleasant travelogue of India. HERE IS REAL MAGIC leaves the reader thinking maybe he/she should go see a good magic show, but also that one's passionate study on a subject can lead to some wonderful things they didn't even know were there to begin with.
Thank you to Bloomsbury USA, Nate Staniforth, and Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!… (mehr)