No book has ever made me question what I believe in as much as this one does. It really opened my mind. It is written in a witty informal way, and I like the way he jumps around from topic to topic. The stuff about how to do magic was a little boring. ( )

2 stars: An "okay" book, possibly draggy or too light, not my thing.

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I read the first 200 pages of this book, but ultimately completed without finishing. I wanted to love it, and I certainly love and appreciate the gesture of it being sent by my dear friend miketroll who I miss terribly. Unfortunately, this book didn't do anything for me. There was little which I did not already know, and it didn't seem to know if it was a book on critical thinking, a book on the history of magic, a memoir, or a book discounting westernized religion. Any of these could have worked, but it had no clear goal or chapter structure.

A few quotes I liked:

"I was confused. If God created us, then presumably the human mind is the pinnacle of creation (second only to Amazon.com and Philip Seymour Hoffman). "

There is a portion of the book when he discusses how people remember very long sequences, for example names of dozens of people who they meet that day. This is the "memory palace" technique of visualization, discussed in the Hannibal Lecter series. He discusses at length his own memory palace to remember the plays of Shakespeare, in order of creation. At one point he says "... is followed by Anthony Hopkins in character as Titus Adronicus [a role which Hopkins did indeed play]." This section was an interesting description and I'm glad he walked us through it. ( )

The mighty Mr Brown gives us an introduction into his techniques and opinions on a wide range of subjects, from magic to NLP to fake mediums.

A witty and inviting writer he never talks down to you. The book has some cracking anecdotes from his times as a student and happy-clapper evangelical Christian (yes, I was amazed too).

There are also very interesting sections on memory techniques, over coming phobias, hypnosis and other tools of his trade. But what comes over most of all is that he is a sceptic of the Dawkin's school, and that's no bad thing. Fake mediums, creationists, New Agers and all the others who deny rational thought and scientific evidence are put to the sword with wit and passion.

Thought provoking and thoroughly recommended. ( )

The cover makes this look like fluff, but it is anything but. An honest examination of hypnosis and hocus-pocus, with a lot of behind-the-scenes this-is-how-it-works revelations. A companion piece to anything Dawkins has written, actually. ( )

I really enjoyed this. He can be very funny and he's consistently interesting, even when he talks about himself. My favourite part (apart from the correspondence) is that on hypnotism. I've been hypnotised numerous times as I was a guinea pig for a friend who was training to become a hypnotist so it was very interesting to see the thoughts of someone who obviously knows a lot about it.

As Brown himself admits, the last part is a rant. I agree with the man - I don't think highly of people take advantage of the stupid and other vulnerable sectors of society. Again, there is some interesting information in there but I'm not sure the rant really adds any value. A small complaint though - overall a good book and I recommend it. ( )