There are those magical historians who are a lot more knowledgeable than me who say the first book test was likely performed by publisher and mentalist Girolamo Scotto for the Emperor of Austria in 1572. But it seems Johann Nepomuk Hofzinser is thought to have introduced the first modern book test variation between 1865 and 1875. Needless to say, they seem to be as popular with mentalists today as they were four hundred years ago.
I, like most, have a collection of commercially produced book tests that I’ve purchased over the years, but I’ve never really been enamoured enough to include any of them in my working repertoire.
Some years ago I decided to design my own minimalist variation and so I sat down and set myself some criteria with the idea of producing some sort of dictionary-style book test that doesn’t actually use a dictionary or any other type of magic shop prop.
I wanted something customisable that I could use in cabaret but also for walkaround close-up gigs, so it had to take up minimal pocket space. The prop had to be innocuous and reasonably examinable so a spectator could handle it with minimal audience management, and I wanted the selection process to appear completely random. But most importantly, I wanted all the words in the book to be interesting or unusual.
Then in 2009 I had an epiphany mid-performance in a nightclub in Spain, one that enabled me to manufacture my own customisable book test that I’ve kept to myself until now.
Hand a spectator a small pocket diary, ask them to merely think of a date in the year (you never know what it is) and silently read the strange and interesting word written by that date.
You can now reveal what they are thinking.
A single ordinary pockdet diary and hundreds of words.
But there’s more because I’ve also inluded a variation that I call ‘Remembering Pi’ that focuses on numbers rather than words.
