Ricky Jay has such an established reputation as a smooth customer quick with the tossed off patter and legendary prestidigitation, that you feel like you are enjoying his book more than you are. It's a nice trick. There is value to this compendium of historical entertainment oddities. Otherwise lost to the footlight footnotes, Ricky Jay affectionately brings to renewed life those who entertained and fascinated the world mostly prior to 1900 by being mind readers, fireproof, brilliant pigs, flying horses, escape artists, enterartists, all knowing and able swallow stones or acids or swords. They were headliners in their heyday but were they around today given modern tastes they would likely be relegated to the sideshow. Much of this book feels like a trip to the side show. Marvelous as many of these stories are, there just isn't enough known about most of these folks to bring them to life for more than mere moments. They flicker briefly then burn out which also happens to the reader if you read too much at one sitting. The book itself became a sideshow to whatever else I was reading. I enjoyed it a chapter ir two at a time and that's how I'd suggest reading it. There are many things here that I will not forget but just like the dead magician who's skull collapsed when the mortician tried to comb his hair...the book is a little thin on top and on the inside too.