In 1930, Walter Irving Scott bamboozled a room full of New York's finest card manipulators by dealing himself winning poker hands from a shuffled deck. His skill was extraordinary and he was soon dubbed the Phantom of the Card Table. Sixty years later Gary Osborne, a magician from England, decided to track him down and, to his surprise, found him living in a retirement home in Rhode Island. The two became friends and Scott expressed an interest in publishing his closely kept secrets. This is the true story behind this elusive trickster.

Walter Irving Scott may have been the greatest card shark ever. In 1930, Scott bamboozled a room full of New York's finest card manipulators by dealing himself winning poker hands from a shuffled deck, one of his many tricks. He liked to say that he "cheated the cheats." His skill with cards was extraordinary and he soon became known as "The Phantom of the Card Table." That's why Gazzo, a magician from England, decided to track Scott down some 60 years later. The two became friends and Scott openly discussed his work with a view to its finally being published. "I don't care what you say," said Scott, "as long as you tell the truth." This is the truth about Walter Irving Scott and other phantoms of the card table who spent years practicing a craft they rarely talk about — cheating at cards. A special chapter revealing master card tricks is also included.

Virginia Woolf identified the influence on her work of 'the Cambridge Apostles', the philosophical society which counted G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell and much of male Bloomsbury among its members, as one more 'capable of description' than 'the influence of my mother'. In this major study of Woolf's relationship to Bloomsbury and the aesthetic and philosophical developments of her time, Ann Banfield subjects that influence to a full treatment. The theory of knowledge Moore and Russell formulated, Banfield argues, profoundly affected Woolf's conception of reality, as it did Roger Fry's theory of Post-Impressionism, one source for Woolf's transformations of philosophical principles into aesthetic ones. The Phantom Table is a magisterial account of Woolf's engagement with this remarkable trinity of thinkers: Moore, Russell, Fry. It revises the epistemology of modernism, reconceiving the relation between realism and formalism to account for Woolf's dual reality of sense impressions and logical forms.

DIVThe one essential guidebook to attaining the highest level of card mastery, from false shuffling and card palming to dealing from the bottom and three-card monte, plus 14 dazzling card tricks. /div

With almost 5 million copies sold 60 years after its original publication, generations of readers have now journeyed with Milo to the Lands Beyond in this beloved classic. Enriched by Jules Feiffer’s splendid illustrations, the wit, wisdom, and wordplay of Norton Juster’s offbeat fantasy are as beguiling as ever. “Comes up bright and new every time I read it . . . it will continue to charm and delight for a very long time yet. And teach us some wisdom, too.” --Phillip Pullman For Milo, everything’s a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he’s got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the Island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason. Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it’s exciting beyond his wildest dreams!