 Hey everybody, welcome back to Magic Orthodoxy. My name is David and this is a magic review. Hey, today we're going to look at Hidden Agenda from Roberto, J.O.B. and Vanishing Incorporated. Hey, if you don't know what Hidden Agenda is, basically it's a book, it's done in calendar format, and this is the sequel to Secret Agenda. Secret Agenda was just a mind-blowing book that Roberto published a while back and it received a lot of attention and a lot of great reviews to it. Roberto basically writes down a calendar, brain-dropping idea, magic idea, inspirational piece, and you get to read it every single day for the entire year. Literally every single page is labeled out January 1st, January 2nd, January 3rd, and so forth, and you get this cool silk bookmark to kind of mark your days. Now, if you don't know who Roberto J.O.B. is, he is probably the preeminent author in Magic, in Card Magic. He's well established. I think the Card College series that I've reviewed in the past, that pretty much secured J.O.B.'s place in Magician history for eternity, but I think a lot of other people found that his boldest and most fascinating work was Secret Agenda, the book that was previously published before this. It's basically a collection of wisdom, advice, secrets, fantastic tricks, and like I said, it's all delivered in this calendar style format. This book, Hidden Agenda, it contains 366 different entries, and I think many readers will appreciate the format. I think they'll read one single entry every single day. Other people, I think, won't be able to wait, and they'll just read the entire book in one or two sittings. The topics in this book are going to range from clever deck switches to meditations or how you and I define the word magic, but every single day Hidden Agenda is going to bring some cool revelation for you from Roberto's mind. I could say a bunch of stuff about this book, but let me just read a couple of things for you from this book, just so you can kind of get an idea what's involved. And this is all just from the beginning. This is all just from the preface, OK? So he says, the categories into which the entries of this book could be classified are techniques, subtleties, tricks, presentations, theoretical and conceptual thoughts, strategies, and ploys, practical advice, verbal and visual gags, quotes, anecdotes, personal opinions, reviews and puzzles. To these, I have added a new major category that I call Presentational Problems. This book has 395 pages of content, 414 pages in total. You can find it from your favorite Murphy's Magic retailer for about $55 and believe me, it's well worth it. This is a beautiful book. It'll look great on your bookshelf. And I think between the two books, between Hidden Agenda and Secret Agenda, Hidden Agenda actually contains more photographs and more magic content than its predecessor. So if you are a fan of the first book, you're going to really love the second book. I think if you're a fan of Roberto Giovi in general, you're definitely going to want to pick up this handsome book. Positives, I can't say enough good things about this book. Let me just say, Roberto Giovi has penned a beautiful volume. It's sure to inspire you each and every day of the year. I can't wait for January 1st. Here's another really cool inspirational quote from the book. Staging and presentation do many things to a trick, but whatever they may do, they will always produce one major benefit. They will captivate and stimulate the spectator's imagination. This is one of the most marvelous things a performer can achieve, because by stimulating the spectator's imagination, you have gained access to his inner world. Governed by his private memories, his personal history, his intimate beliefs, his emotions, and immense unexplored universe. And by doing this, you have achieved something that defines an artist. You have brought the spectator's world and yours together for the length of your performance. You have achieved communication, a goal of the highest order. And here's another really cool quote that I really like that I thought I'd share. When buying tricks, that is props, the instructions tell us what to do with them, explain the secret workings, the mechanics, but they do not tell us how to create magic with them. The trouble with magic is that if you take a trick developed over many years by a professional magician and you follow the instructions to the letter without trying to improve them, you will usually obtain satisfactory results without necessarily understanding why. Typically, this happens in videos and lectures, where it suffices that the performer does what he does well and then explains the mechanics. This produces the illusion that we understand magic just because we know it's secret workings. That's really cool. Hey, this is a great, great volume, like I said, and I want to really want to thank Murphy's Magic for allowing me to have this book so that I could do the review for you. And if you would like to purchase this book for yourself, you can find it from your very favorite Murphy's Magic retailers. Thanks. Bye.