In honor of magician David Blaine's latest stunt, which he is performing this week in Times Square, I'm (sort of) devoting this post to magic.

My favorite book I've read all year was actually published last year: Greg Galloway's As Simple As Snow. The book has been noted for having a memorable first line:

Anna Cayne had moved here in August just before our sophmore year in high school, but by February she had, one by one, killed everyone in town.

Anne Cayne, the new goth girl in town, begins a relationship with an unnamed protagonist, an "average Joe" student who becomes swept up in her intelligence, uncanny communication, and amazing mix CDs (I'm going to have a music geek moment here, but how many "teen" novels out there mention bands like Felt, The Smiths, and Bonnie "Prince" Billy? I'm impressed!). The book follows their romance and her subsequent disappearance, which leads to hundreds of unanswered questions, clues, and a mystery too deep to be contained within the book. In fact, you can sign up at www.assimpleassnow.com to have clues e-mailed to you on a weekly basis. What other books do this?

But, getting back to the theme of this post, I should mention that Anna, ASAS's main character, is obsessed with Houdini, most notably, the codes that he and his wife invented together. This led me to read the new Houdini biography, Escape!: The Story of the Great Houdini by Sid Fleischman. Through reading this, you realize that Houdini is really the grandfather of modern magic. Although David Blaine and Criss Angel perform elaborate stunts, most of their feats are modern revivals of old Houdini acts. To see some of this magic in action, be sure to check out the new DVD Criss Angel Mindfreak: Halloween.

And if you think that magic is kind of stupid, may I recommend the TV show Arrested Development? Gob Bluth, one of the show's main characters, is a hilarious failure as a magician, botching almost every trick he attempts to perform. In one episode, he is one-upped by guest star Ben Stiller who plays Tony Wonder, a magician whose act is largely based on the fact that he can make bread appear out of thin air. Get it? Tony Wonder? And yes, I have hyped Arrested Development in this blog before, but I don't care. I love this show.

And so ends my (super-long) post on magic.