Presto!

August 1, 2016
The taller and more verbal half of Penn and Teller was approaching two things fast: his sixtieth birthday and a weight of 350 pounds. He signed up for gastric sleeve surgery, but he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about it. He wondered if there were another way he could quickly lose about a hundred pounds to avoid going under the knife? After some searching, he hooked up with Ray Cronise, a former NASA scientist and weight-loss innovator whose controversial potato diet had already impressed some people with its straightforward dietary requirements and speedy results. This hugely entertaining book chronicles Jillette's weight-loss odyssey, but it really does much more than that. It's also a rant against American eating habits and Jillette's own self-destructive lifestyle, and along the way the ever-witty author fills us in on a lot of other stuff that wanders through his mind. It's funny and profane and sometimes a little infuriatinghallmarks of his God No! (2011) and Every Day Is an Atheist Holiday! (2012)but it's also undeniably inspiring and will appeal to a broad audience, from Penn-and-Teller fans to voracious consumers of weight-loss books.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)