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Hey, his character is the author of a book… so that counts, right?

Once when I was a kid, my school hosted a magician. I remember very little about the magic show, except that I was seated pretty far away from the stage. During the intermission, my dad went to get some snacks and came back giggling that he was going to be part of the act. Apparently, the magician approached him while he was waiting on line and asked him if he would be willing to come up on stage and act as his assistant. My dad handed over the snacks and then headed back up to the stage and disappeared behind the curtain. He thrust our clunky yellow camera at me and told me that I must capture his stage debut.

I sat anxiously throughout the second part of the show and was terrified when a guillotine was wheeled out on stage. My dad entered behind it. Though I was fairly certain that my dad would not be murdered in the middle of a crowded auditorium, when it came time for him to stick his head in the hole, I held the camera above my head and snapped without looking. The photos were blurry, but at least my father wasn’t decapitated in front of the entire school! He even got to keep a silk scarf that he had helped to retrieve from a hat.

In honor of Smoke and Mirrors Day (March 29th), we’d like to highlight some of our favorite magicians, especially the one who didn’t chop my dad’s head off in front of my entire elementary school. Add your favorite magicians — real or fictional — to the comments!

There’s one thing everyone needs when they fall in love AND during the zombie apocalypse: safe, secure communication. Whether your undead-filled love story is set in modern times or Jane Austen’s England, a hand written letter is only as secure as the wax it’s sealed with. But who has time to run to the stationery store when there’s an undead horde outside? Make your own sealing wax with these instructions and crayons in all your favorite colors.

Needlework: it’s everywhere in Jane Austen’s novels. No country mansion was complete without a series of neatly-made embroidered projects on display. Antique samplers have been found featuring everything from the ABCs to the planets! These days it’s hard to find time to embroider timeless phrases like “Of all the weapons in the world, love is the most dangerous” or “The more I see of the world, the more I am dissatisfied with it,” but that doesn’t mean you can’t feature them in a beautiful sampler!

With a tube of fabric paint used for textured designs you can get the same look in a fraction of the time; leaving you more hours in the day for practicing the deadly arts and stocking your doomsday shelter. Surely no hideout or underground bunker could really be complete without a cheerful, handmade reminder on zombie readiness!

Writing poetry isn't really a talent of mine—unless you count humorous/sarcastic haikus and "Roses Are Red" variants—but I do randomly stack books to create sentences and mini-mini short stories. Then I discovered that this a Thing: spine poetry! Naturally, I got sucked into the Internet and bounced from Pinterest to Tumblr to blog posts filled with books stacked and photographed to create a poem. 

So for no reason at all and with no prize promised, I challenged myself to see how many sentences I could create with the books in my office. My self-imposed rules were no title repetition and only using print books on my shelves. Here's what I came up with.

Deep in the shade of paradise, when you are engulfed in flames, this book will save your life.

(image via the awesome Blue Willow Books)

Shopping in a bookstore is a bit like shopping at a hardware store: if you’re there for something specific, you need to know a thing or two about the item you’re looking for before attempting to find it in the aisles. If you’re there to browse, the world is your oyster.

As a bookseller, I’ve often heard people ask for a book they saw several weeks ago, on that table near the café (you know the one!), that had a blue cover. But lots books go on display every week, on many tables, and some of those books were published two, five, ten years ago! Feeling helpless and apologetic, all I can do is point out general sections of the store where they might find a blue book. So to correct future sadness, arm yourself with bookstore etiquette and prepare to fill your arms with all the books you could ever want!

Pigs often get a bad rap. They’re known for being dirty, shrewd, and violent, even though they actually make excellent companions. But for every Animal Farm villain, for every terrifying pigoon in Oryx and Crake, there is a work of literature that, rightfully, shows pigs as the intelligent and good-natured animals they are.

That my favorites are all from children’s literature should not dissuade kind readers, for what is more truthful than a child’s story? In honour of National Pig Day [March 1], let’s take a closer look: