Get it from Lewis Jones, 23 Woodbastwick Road, London SE26 5LG, England. £28.00 + £5.00 p&p. Email: lewis.jones@ukonline.co.uk

Not my book. Not published by me. Not available from this website.

I used to think there were four certainties in life:

- death

- taxes

- where people have the right to spend money they haven't had to earn, there will be wastage on a massive scale (e.g. the Arts Council)

- Jimi Hendrix is the greatest exponent of the electric guitar who ever lived

To this list, I can now add a fifth:

- if you buy this book, you won't regret it.

So what's in it? Lewis Jones is one of the great creative minds in magic. He specialises in close-up card magic with an ungaffed deck, placing the emphasis on ingenuity rather than sleights. From 1993 onwards, he published several short-run booklets of original card and close-up material: Cardiograms, Imp Romp 2, Shampagne, Spring of 52, Con Sessions, Lusions and Counter Feats. All great, all worth having.

Lewis has now compiled this material into one handsome, well-produced hardback volume. He has revised and improved most of the text and added new explanatory photographs and illustrations. Seventh Heaven is the result, and it's a joy.

380 pages, over 100 effects, moves and utilities. The quality of thinking on offer here is quite exceptional, which is why so many magicians around the world have incorporated one or more Lewis Jones tricks into their performing repertoire. Lewis has a remarkable mind, which, allied to a profound knowledge of existing card methodology, comes up with alarmingly baffling plots and equally deceptive methods.

It's a cliché, but there really is something for everyone. If you want to divine choices, read minds, predict the future, locate cards, deal amazing hands, make cards vanish, appear or relocate, or make cards do just about anything else that seems impossible, and if you want to do this either with no sleight of hand or minimal basic sleights (any needed are explained), then this is the book for you. There is also a smattering of non-card close-up items and close-up mentalism.

To put the icing on the cake, Lewis writes as clearly as he thinks, and all the explanations are lucid, succinct and easy to follow.

Just do yourself a favour, and buy it.

Please do not write asking me anything else about this item. The author didn't ask me to advertise it, this is not a paid-for advert, and I make no money out of this book. I don't wish to deal with 6 questions a day about something I make no money out of.