This is a great book full is simple and elegant card magic.  

J.G. Thompson Jr. is not only a magician and creator, but responsible for putting together some amazing collections of magic in book form. 

Here is a marvelous excerpt from the forward written by John Braun in 1972.

"He has definitively struck "pay dirt" in this book which he has whimsically titled THE LIVING END. In simpler terms, this is an encyclopedia collection of endings for one of the most popular branches of magic, the "take a card, look at a card, remember a card, think of a card, any card," opening. 

Having completed the stage, the performer knows either the identity of the card or its whereabouts in the pack, and sometimes he knows both. And, as John Northern Hilliard put it back in 1908 Downs' ART OF MAGIC, "He would be a very lame performer who would simply take a card off the pack (or out of it) and hand it to a spectator with the remark, "here's your card."

Over 200 impromptu take-a-card trick endings!!!

This book is a gold mine of card revelations and ideas from great magicians and card guys of another era from:

John Scarne

Bert Douglas 

Arthur Buckley 

T. Page Wright

Dr. Jacob Daley

Ted Annemann

Jack Merlin

Stanley Collins

Orville Meyer 

U.F. Grant

S.H. Sharpe

Henry Christ

Stewart James 

And the list goes on!!!!!!!

Most of it is Self working or very minimal sleights.  

Highly recommended.  

I'm going to share with you one of my favorite tricks from this book. But before I do my question is does anybody else have this book? Does anybody else have any favorites? Please post here on the blog and let me know :-)