Definitive Sankey or Art of Astonishment? That is the question.

Now that the three Sankey books have been reissued those who missed out the first time can make up for it this time round. Both the Sankey set and the Paul Harris books comprise three volumes of very varied and unique material, something for almost everyone, but that raises question of which set is the best in terms of content, it's a personal choice of course but does anyone have strong preference between them and if so why?

No , love em both.

Both of these books have plenty to offer. But in a way, it's apples and oranges. Why? because as you study this material, you get insight into how these individuals think, and approach their magic. I think you will find very different approaches, and that can only be better for activating your own creativity. And both gooks have plenty of effects worth some attention!

I think that there is a bit more philosophical stuff in the early Harris work, and a lot of method stuff in the early Sankey - all in terms of emphasis. Over the years, they changed places a bit. Harris started promoting magic from magicians that had very clever methods. And Sankey has dedicated more time to theory and philosophy... that's what getting older and having so much experience can do to a person.

In short, they are both extremely worthy texts, and should be in your library. Apples and oranges. Great in the same basket!

I like the the Harris books for the card material and the Sankey books for the non-card material.

That's a good point. I've only recently bought the Sankey set, so I'm not yet able to do a fair comparison, however my initial reaction is to agree with you there. There seem to be a lot of card effects involving destruction of some sort, like tearing up cards or corners off them, scorching them with fire, folding them up or scribbling on them with a marker pen. This is fine if you can use the effect as a feature item but it's not the sort of thing you can do with a borrowed deck. One of the best tricks in the books is the cards in balloon, but it does require a formal set-up to facilitate the switch, so it's not suited to mix and mingle type walk around work. The paper-clip card prediction trick is really very good though.

I might revise my opinion when I've had the opportunity to get further into the books, but at the moment my preference is for Harris, though of course he also has card destruction tricks such as linking cards etc.

Yeah these are two very different book sets and I have both, and it would be hard to pick just one. But the good news is we don't have to. It is all about personal preference. AOA was more advanced and had a lot of odd yet amazing effects, Definitive Sankey had a much more all-round skill level, but most of the tricks are more easy to do, yet some are more difficult. It also had a lot of "presentation and theory" (Beyond Secrets) as well, and AOA has some also.

One of my favorite subjects and something I have studied and wrote about in my many essays on here, and other forums over the past 21 years. There have been many other similar threads as well like "Greater Magic or Tarbell?" Tarbell is the most complete and thorough course on magic ever created, and it is 8 books or one big book. Greater Magic is one little big book, or "block" that covers a wide range of magic as well. It is also 5 smaller books.

Tarbell is a more complete course, like an encyclopedia of pretty much all of magic except much more thorough as it teaches lessons in order. But I think both are equally important. Greater Magic is like a "sample" of Tarbell, but still a very big sample. Some have even asked "Encyclopedia of Coin Magic or Encyclopedia of Card Magic?" Well that is also personal preference, do you like coins or do you like cards? Both? I like both, so I have both.

I have as many books as I possibly can as I always did, after collecting for 43 years now. I may not be able to read them all but at least the knowledge is there and waiting whenever I am ready. So I think you should go through as many books as possible and then decide for yourself which one. No one else can make that decision for you. It is all about personal preference and performing style. Since I like them all I read them all, and then decide what I will use.