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ppanda65's review against another edition
3.0
Did not know Houdini had such a close relationship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Very close who became rivals. He also had many large collections.
owlien's review against another edition
informative
tense
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Antisemitism, Grief, and Religious bigotry
Minor: Alcoholism
omnibozo22's review against another edition
4.0
As is true for many magicians, I have read more than a dozen Houdini "biographies." They range from the juvenile (intended or not) to the excruciatingly detailed. Begley, commissioned for a series of books about famous Jews, treads a middle ground. There is nothing new here, as this presents more of a synopsis of current published information. More valuable than the body of the book is the Note On Sources, as he briefly reviews eight of the more recent and well-known biographies. I do disagree with him on the Ruth Brandon book, which I thought was shallow. (Hard to respect an author who was blown away by the old 'ashes on the arm to reveal a name' trick... which was similar to Doyle's being blown away by the 'pulling off the thumb' trick when Houdini claimed to do it.)
If you haven't read much Houdiniana, then this would be an OK place to start. New readers will be perplexed by some of the claims, until they have finished the book and have also read at least the reviews of the other primary books.
If you haven't read much Houdiniana, then this would be an OK place to start. New readers will be perplexed by some of the claims, until they have finished the book and have also read at least the reviews of the other primary books.
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