Marilyn is … genius. Up to now we’ve had mostly contradictory views of Monroe. With his fox’s ingenuity, Mailer puts her together and shows how she might have been torn apart ...

Marilyn is great as only a great writer using his brains and feelers could make it ... a runaway string of perceptions ... You read him with a heightened consciousness because his performance has zing. It’s the star system in literature; you can feel him bucking for the big time, and when he starts flying it’s so exhilarating you want to applaud ...

This brilliant book ... a feat.

Fascinating … inspired

At once poignant and hilarious

A welcome contrast to the current trend of macho post-rehab confessions by tedious hard-rock narcissists

A seamless, authentic, exhilarating read, without a single slack paragraph. I inhaled it like WD40 round the back of Lidl

This is a rare book on magic: it doesn’t unmask tricks. Instead, it exposes the strange sub­culture surrounding magicians and magic and the murky realms they rub up against…This book is clever and winning — and it’s well written, too...In turning our attention away from the magic and towards the magicians, Stone has pulled off an excellent trick.

A journalist with a background in science neatly describes the tricks of the magician’s trade…The book, of course, treats magic more as science than superstition, and here Stone’s point is well made…A peek behind the curtain…As he shows us the limits of our logic, Stone’s enthusiasm rubs off.

fascinating … As an American science journalist, Stone is certainly interested in what magic reveals about our mental make-up – and very good indeed at writing comprehensibly about it. But as a magician himself, he’s a huge and infectious fan of the whole business. As a result, he plunges us deep in the history, traditions and lore of a world that, by its very nature, is normally kept secret from the layman. He exposes the techniques used by people who pretend not to be magicians – including psychics of all kinds. He also introduces us to an enormous cast of colourful characters, past and present.

The book is not a how-to guide, but it delves into the psychology and cognitive science behind magic…Aspiring pick-pockets will enjoy his explanation of how to misdirect someone’s attention while removing their watch.

The real pleasure of his beguiling, meandering narrative is not the destination but the rococo scenery en route. ****