Join the Exploring Erdnase Book Club

The book club began on Sunday, the 1st of January, 2023, but you can join in at any point during 2023. We'll be looking at a single book for the entire year. The book we'll be studying is The Expert at the Card Table by S.W. Erdnase, also known simply as Erdnase or The Bible by dedicated cardicians! You might wonder why I'm taking a whole year to read Erdnase; this is to make it easier for younger, less experienced magicians to engage with the text. Unfortunately, for a person brought up on YouTube tutorials and instant downloads, The Expert at the Card Table makes for a very intimidating read due to its archaic language (words and phrases that are no longer commonly used).

The aim is not to learn or, heaven forbid, master all the material in the book! I simply want to help people read it. Unfortunately, many magicians seem to discount Erdnase without attempting to read it; I think this is a crying shame, given the importance of the text in the development of modern-day card conjuring. Therefore, each post will contain an extract from the book and my thoughts on it. Serialising the book in this manner should, hopefully, encourage reluctant readers to join in, too.

To fully participate in the 2023 Book Club, you must subscribe to the Exploring Erdnase Book Club via Substack (I'm no longer using Google Classroom). If you'd rather not receive updates via email, you can simply follow along by reading the weekly updates on Substack.

I've prepared a new digital version of the book that you can view on the web (or download free of charge). This edition has new typesetting and enlarged illustrations to aid the learning process. You can see a preview at the very bottom of this page.

If you want to download a PDF version of the book to your device, you can select File > Download > PDF document (.pdf). You can also download the file in other formats, including Microsoft Word (.docx). Finally, if you have a Google Account, you can select File > Make a copy to duplicate the entire document. Doing this is helpful if you want to add inline comments or make your own edits to the text.

I look forward to discussing the book with you all soon!

Marty