Welcome back to the CEO Book Club. Ajay Patel, CEO of SMA, selected “Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women: Unique, Eccentric and Amazing Entertainers” by Ricky Jay for this week’s book. This book, published in 1986, is an intriguing history of mind readers, stone eaters, fire, and poison resistors, “learned” animals, daredevils and amazing illusionists, magicians, and assorted oddities of the world of entertainment since the early 20^th century. The book is extremely well-researched and written in an engaging, genuinely funny way. Ricky Jay, a highly accomplished sleight-of-hand artist, is a world-renowned expert on the history of magic and illusion.

The book’s title is a reference to an extraordinary pig that debuted in 1786 on the London stage. The pig could spell names, solve simple arithmetic problems, tell time, and even read the thoughts of the audience! The pig was trained by S. Bisset, a Scottish shoemaker, who was more interested in training animals to perform unusual human-like activities than being a cobbler. He also trained “learned” horses, dogs, monkeys, cats, turkeys, and other animals to perform stage tricks. In seventeen chapters of the book, Ricky Jay covers a universe of entertainers including the amazing mentalist Harry Kahne, the circus entertainer LaRoche, and fire resister Signora Josephine Girardelli. Harry Kahne was known for performing multiple intense mental tasks simultaneously such as “reading a newspaper upside down, he transposed the letters, wrote upside down and backward, added five twelve-digit numbers, and divided another sum into five unequal parts” while conversing with the audience. The circus performer LaRoche concealed in a two-foot diameter steel sphere, would roll the ball up a long, twenty-four-foot-high spiral without any external assistance or trickery. Ricky Jay includes a fascinating chapter on fire acts, one of the longest-running acts in show business. He describes some of the unusual fire acts by Signora in private performances such as pouring boiling lead in her mouth, walking barefoot on a red-hot iron bar, and cooking an egg with boiling oil in her hands.

If you are as fascinated as Ajay by stage acts of magic, illusion, and unique feats, you must add this book to your library. Though the book is out of print you can still purchase a used copy from Amazon, Powell’s City of Books, AbeBooks, or other well-stocked used bookstores. Also, don’t forget to get “Ricky Jay’s Journal of Anomalies” for even more fun reading. Be prepared to be amazed!