This is Paul Gordon’s version of Ted Danson’s famous “Diary Trick”.  Many magic greats have endorsed this to be the best version.

In effect, a spectator is shown a pocket-sized daily dairy that has the names of different playing cards printed on different dates.  A deck of cards is shuffled.  The spectator names any date in the year.  The spectator cuts the deck to select a random card.  This card matches exactly the playing card found on the diary on the named date.  This is a straight forward diary trick – no complicating counting procedures.

You receive the pocket-sized daily diary.  This is a generic dairy without any year printed on it.  In fact, it is named “Birthday Book”.  The instructions are in the form of a printed double page sheet.

There is a system you need to learn.  This system is not applied to the playing cards, but to the selected date.  It is a very easy calculation to enable you to arrive at a playing card when given a specific date.

For those who do not like even simple arithmetic mental calculations, Paul Gordon has provided a special something for you to use.

As mentioned, the dairy you are given is a generic one and is appropriately named the “Birthday Book”.  An interesting feature of this pocket book is that it contains the signs of the zodiac as well as the birthstones and flowers of each month of the year.  There is also a meaning for each birthstone.  This enables you to do some kind of character reading if you know the spectator’s birth month.

The main reason this version has received so many praises is because there is no set-up in the deck of cards.  The deck can even be borrowed.  The deck can therefore be thoroughly shuffled by a spectator.  (Rated 5/5 stars)