Just like his live shows this book follows a story around which he interjects seemingly random thoughts and memories (and around 6 million footnotes to accommodate the way he goes off on a tangent).

Little to add to previous reviews really. I really like Darren Brown as a performer and advocate. However, this book meanders, using a card trick in a Bristol hotel as the thread. Over-wordy in parts and thoroughly over-meticulous descriptions elsewhere, there are times when these lead to descriptions and explanations being over-complicated. Occasionally, I'm afraid I couldn't resist the temptation to think how much better Stephen Fry is at this sort of thing - striking an engaging balance between descriptive detail and self-examination.

Very entertaining, typically Derren Brown

2.5?

Here's the thing. I love Derren Brown. I love his shows, his performances, his personality. I've seen him live twice and met him once (he's also a lovely guy) but this book is not it.

I previously read Tricks of the Mind many moons ago (in 2009) and found it fascinating.

Confessions of a Conjuror, however, was over written, dull, tedious, interesting and fun in parts, but over all a bit of a slog to get through.

First of all, the whole book chronicles one (1) card trick to a group of people in a party, but splits off and diverges into random ramblings about many interesting aspects of Derren's life growing up, but also about many totally irrelevant, couldn't-care-less-about anecdotes that I wouldn't even bore a family member with on a late Sunday evening.

For example -
A whole page telling us how he cuts his fingernails with clippers.

Also, if that weren't boring enough, a lot of these 'anecdotes' were written in the term of 'footnotes' - I use the term footnotes lightly, because some of them took up 5 half pages! So you'd read the main piece of writing, see the asterix, go to the bottom, and read through 5 - 6 three quarter pages explaining Brown's lift preferences (yes. I mean that simple, non descript act of going in a lift to reach higher floors) then have to flip back those 5 pages to continue to read the main part, that has been squashed up at the top, with 7 or 8 lines on each of those 5 pages. I dread to think how any Kindle readers would get through this book!

Every single thing in the book is over explained to an excruciating degree. To the placement of fingers on a deck of cards and each individual nano second of movement (which I guess could be almost ok, seems as it's describing a trick - but it's definitely over explained even for that) to every non event that Derren thinks is important enough to mention (the lift, the nail clipping, I can't even think of any others because they were such non events)

That being said.

There were a few fun and interesting anecdotes. I quite enjoyed the main arc of the magic trick, even if it was over explained in parts, it was a nice insight into the trick and the thought process of Derren and probably most conjurors or magicians. (I also watched a few clips from Penn and Teller Fool Us while in the middle of the book, and clocked some obvious slight of hand - whether this would have been obvious to me if I hadn't read the book, I couldn't say, but it was interesting that my brain saw it straight away)

The efficiency and ease of losing pens, childhood stories, some nice background info on old tricks (I especially love sharing the one about the magician who used children from the audience to attest to there being no string holding up his floating woman - years later one of the now adults said the guy whispered in his ear to not mention the very obvious string or he'd fucking kill him!) and Derren's sexuality being used to make headlines were all very enjoyable to read about, so it's not all bad.

Unfortunately the mundane out weigh the interesting in this book.

Cut out the footnotes (most of the time they could have just been mentioned in the story and it would have flowed better anyway) slash the explanations of most of the topics by half, and you'd probably have a pretty interesting and enjoyable read.

This book was certainly not what I expected. I remember finding it quite hard to get into but that might have been due to the fact that I didn't have much time to properly sit down and read due to school work. As the book progressed it just got better and better and made me laugh at many points. It was interesting to be let into the fabulous mind that is Derren Brown and I would recommend it to anyone (in fact I have already made plans to give it to a friend on Monday.)

P.S it perhaps has the best ending to a book/autobiography ever, in the history of ever.

I absolutely loved this book. It did take a few pages to realise that it wasn't going to be your usual memoir or even a memoir at all. The style of writing is unusual but perfect for this book and actually you can actually imagine Brown speaking as you read, going off at very random tangents that last for a whole chapter before going back to where he started from. The footnotes are often incredibly long - sometimes lasting for several pages themselves - but are definitely worth reading as they also include some very funny or interesting anecdotes.

Being just a month older than me - a fact I didn't realise until I looked it up on Wikipedia while reading this book - I was able to relate to a lot of what Brown writes in this book.

It probably isn't for everyone but I'd definitely recommend it if you are a fan.

I'm a massive fan of Derren so immediately snapped this up. Very good read which interested me and provided a good insight on Derren.

Interesting, but by the end the footnotes seemed very self indulgent.

The language he uses is a bit difficult for me and it makes it very hard to read. I need to focus on what I'm reading about, when it's only how Derren looks for his pen, waits for the lift, what he reads on the loo or how he eats After Eights. It seems riducolous to me. Then I look at the cover and see 'Confessions of a Conjuror' and think: 'This is not what I ordered.' Didn't enjoy it but still finished it. One great thing stood out, which made me pu it into practise. And that is being kind when meeting famous people. Or basically be kind to all the people you don't know to make the best first impression.