Robert Giobbi's Secret Agenda :: Reviewed by Joe O'Donnell

Roberto Giobbi’s SECRET AGENDA - The first thing that strikes you about this exceptional volume is the quality of its publication. Of course the fact that it is published by Stephen Minch’s Hermetic Press should give you a clue. It is a fat, heavy book, 424 pages long in an embossed and handsomely decorated hardcover binding. If, like me, you are a lover and a collector of books you will have fallen for it right away. You’ll weigh it in your hands, smell the pages, admire the typeface and the drawings and before you’ve even read a word you will be head over heels in love with this.

But what’s inside it? And dare you judge this book by its cover?

SECRET AGENDA is a day book of magical secrets, musings, tips, rants, effects,

routines, sleights and insights from the fertile brain of the man who gave you the Card College Series, and the subsequent Card College Light volumes. It is destined to be a runaway success in 2011, and by this time next year the first edition will be fetching mouth watering prices on e-bay. That’s if you could even bear to part with it. Ever.

Seldom has a book come my way that has engaged my enthusiasm so totally and one that so utterly enchanted me. The last time that I can remember waxing lyrically so much over a magic book was at David Britland’s THE MIND AND MAGIC OF DAVID BERGLAS.

SECRET AGENDA is an open invitation to spend a year inside the mind of a master. In many ways it resembles the Advent Calendar of old, when on the 25 days leading up to Christmas you lifted a tiny flap on the calendar and exposed a surprise gift, or part of the story except that here you will find 366 days–(there’s an extra day here for the leap year). Every day of the year you will open a fresh door in Giobbi’s mind and have something surprising and enriching spring out to greet you-a new trick, sleight, technique, refinement, performance tip, business strategy, concept or insight, drawn from the thoughts, experience and notebooks of a full-time international performer and one of magic’s great teachers. 

The idea is that you read these pieces a day at a time, enjoying Giobbi’s profound technical knowledge, and his challenging approaches to the art of magic. It’s a worthy undertaking–one day at a time–but I would be surprised if the reader did not dip joyfully and haphazardly throw himself or herself into the entire volume randomly sampling the goodies on offer, like a child in a chocolate factory. 

The list of magicians whom Giobbi references include Fred Kaps, Dai Vernon, Ascanio, Juan Tamariz, Lennart Green, Vanni Bossi, David Williamson and many others. It is a rich vade-mecum of ideas and inspiration, laid out day by day. While the material addresses in part the expected field of card magic, it covers much more: coin and close-up magic, platform and stage conjuring, theory, philosophy and humor. 

For such a sumptuous volume, indexed, bound in ornately foil-stamped cloth and including a ribbon book marker one would expect it to carry a correspondingly heavy price tag. It is currently available at most stores for approximately £44.50, €52 or $70. |It is a heavy volume and postage is likely to reflect this. So the sterling option shipped from the U.K maybe the least expensive option. 

Believe me; it is worth twice this amount.