Word Work1

THE BLURB:
Long awaited, Alain’s underground work on “the book test”,
has finally re-surfaced as a new and complete treatise.

Imagine being able to introduce an ordinary book (this can
be a book of any title or author) which you hand to a
volunteer to inspect. The volunteer now decides on a word to
focus on from somewhere in the middle of a couple of
randomly opened-to pages, and then letter by letter, you are
able to correctly divine the thought-of selection.
Immediately, and without any hesitation, you sign the book
inside its front cover and offer it as a gift to your
volunteer. This is just one of the methods that you are
taught by reading this treatment. And it’s “real-world”
work. Alain has used this for over 25 years.

Highlights include:

1) 40 pages covering the method, work and principles of this
effect in full detail.

2) 10 essays covering the history, theory, philosophy, and
principles regarding Alain’s book test criteria that would
be eye-opening to any mentalist. There isn’t a single page
where you won’t read about a subtlety or perspective that
won’t make you stop and think.

3) Methods that are explained both for beginners as well as
more advanced practitioners.

4) Great Examples—using the three books, Alice in
Wonderland, Zen in the Martial Arts, and The 7 Habits of
Highly Effective People. Go to your local bookstore and pick
up one or all of these books after learning the system and
you will be off performing this sooner than you expect!

5) Subtleties galore: All techniques and subtleties
described here can also easily be added to jazz with or
embellish any other book test routine or method.

MY COMMENTS:
Alain Nu is certainly one of mentalism's most pre-eminent
creative thinkers. And he's established his expertise in
two areas - his work on metal bending and book tests. If
you intend to learn his incredible techniques on metal
bending, I urge you to look into one of Alain Nu's exclusive
workshops on the topics which he's been holding annually.

As to his book test work, Alain did release some of his
techniques in a rare publication some years ago, but now
he's releasing more of his techniques in two volumes.
Needless to say, the material in here serves as a brilliant
example of that reputation he's made regarding his work on
book tests.

Though both volumes deal with book tests using ordinary
books, this first volume deals with books that are prepared.
The preparation doesn't take very long and is quite easy to
do. It's necessary for the "Peeky Bank" which is the main
focus on the first section of the book. This dealers with
the selection of a page. The second section features on a
different technique that Alain calls "organigrams" and
focuses on the selection of the word on that page.

Also included in the book is Alain's Principle Guidelines to
using book tests. These preface the rest of the book and
lay out his goals and expectations for using book tests. He
also explains his love/hate relationships with book tests.

What's important to understand is that Alain presents
techniques, not routines. It is up to you to use these
incredible techniques however you need to. That means that
I highly recommend this book for every serious mentalist,
but must caution the beginning or novice mentalists that the
information within will be of no use until one gains a
thorough understanding of routining in general, and
booktests to be specific.

This is an 8.5" by 11", 40-page book. The title does not
mention that it is Volume 1, but the inside clearly does.