Jay´s Journal of Anomalies

If you enjoyed Ricky Jay’s book, Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women, you will most certainly enjoy this new book by the same author. Jay’s Journal of Anomalies is a hardbound, full collection compilation of his quarterly publication of the same name.
Ricky Jay, an accomplished magician and show biz historian, culls some of the best information, from his vast collection and library, and sends you back in time to experience the excitement, the cheating, the charlatanism, the absurdity, the amazement and the gullibility of audiences of past centuries. This is truly fun reading.
What you will find in this book is the same type of off-beat oddities found in Learned Pigs, with the same eclectic variety of persons and animals, with amazing in-depth knowledge of these acts long past.
As a professional entertainer myself, I am truly astonished at the types of amusement the people of the 18th and 19th centuries enjoyed. Here, in this book, you will find such creatures as learned dogs, trained fleas and the rare-but-famous Bonassus.
You will enjoy learning about crucifixion acts of the 19th and 20th centuries, persons who amputated their nose, people who stopped eating completely and the tiniest and fattest of persons.
What’s the odd relationship between magician and dentists? How did Automatons work? Could people really float? Read about these in Jay’s Journal of Anomalies.
This is truly a fun and fascinating book to read; I can see how the subscribers of the original publication would look forward to reading it every three months.
One thing to note is that this book is more than just a compilation of newsletters. Added to this book are some beautiful (and sometimes colorful) posters, pictures and such that were not in the original set of newsletters. There is also a section of the book that updates much of the information in the original manuscripts.
(Expect to increase your vocabulary, too. Ricky Jay’s utilization of the English language is extraordinary. I thoroughly enjoyed his unique writing style.)
If you were to purchase the original subscription, it would have cost you $90 a year. In four years, that would have totaled $360! Now, you can own a hardbound edition of all the newsletters, with photos and much more for just US$40.00 (and much lower at Amazon.com).
I highly recommend this book to anyone who entertains. Get this book.