Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales
Written by Penn Jillette
Narrated by Penn Jillette
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
Legendary magician Penn Jillette was approaching his sixtieth birthday. Topping 330 pounds and saddled with a systolic blood pressure reading over 200, he knew he was at a dangerous crossroads: if he wanted to see his small children grow up, he needed to change. And then came Crazy Ray. A former NASA scientist and an unconventional, passionate innovator, Ray Cronise saved Penn Jillette’s life with his wild “potato diet.”
In Presto, Jillette takes us along on his journey from skepticism to the inspiring, life-changing momentum that transformed the magician’s body and mind. He describes the process in hilarious detail, as he performs his Las Vegas show, takes meetings with Hollywood executives, hangs out with his celebrity friends and fellow eccentric performers, all while remaining a dedicated husband and father. Throughout, he weaves in his views on sex, religion, and pop culture, making his story a refreshing, genre-busting account. Outspoken, frank, and bitingly clever, Presto is an incisive, rollicking read.
Penn Jillette
Penn Jillette is a cultural phenomenon as a solo personality and as half of the world-famous Emmy Award-winning magic duo Penn & Teller. His solo exposure is enormous: from Howard Stern to Glenn Beck to the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared on Dancing with the Stars, MTV Cribs, and Chelsea Lately and hosted the NBC game show Identity. As part of Penn & Teller, he has appeared more than twenty times on David Letterman, as well as on several other TV shows, from The Simpsons and Friends to Top Chef and The View. He cohosts the controversial series Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, which has been nominated for sixteen Emmy Awards. He is currently cohost of the Discovery Channel's Penn & Teller Tell a Lie and the author of God, No! and Presto.
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Reviews for Presto!
61 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Funny personal stories mixed with food talk. A great combo of info about how he lost weight and entertaining stories.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If you can cope with the swearing (come on... we're all adults here aren't we?) then it's a brilliant look into how *exactly* Penn managed to lose over 100 pounds.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Listened to this last night while driving. It was an honest, funny, interesting, inspiring, and really incredible journey of Penn's transformation to save his life. Really glad that he did the narration himself. Felt more like listening to a podcast/conversation instead of being read to.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I enjoyed the insights into how to succeed when you choose to make a change. I would have given the book 4* but the language was off putting. Outside of the that it was worth a listen my take away is when I go to a restaurant where nothing looks good I can choose not to eat. It is not an option I ever considered using
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent , funny, and inspiring for those needing a little motivation.