I never in my wildest dreams thought I would ever abort a Martin Gardner book. This book, however, proved untenable for me. It was rambling and boring. I could not get engaged with a subject that should be engaging. Perhaps he should have hired a ghost writer; he was very close to his death when he finished this, and perhaps he wasn't everything he used to be. ( )

Bonkers, of course. What a wonderful book. Just browse the massive index, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

This is not the man I imagined when reading all those Mathematical Games columns, nor the one who became my one of my favorite skeptics when I first read Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science...he's quite human. I always marveled at how he could call pseudoscience (and the cranks pushing it) for what it was without libelous criticism. He set that tact aside in his last book and it was refreshing. I also always marveled at his research connections...debunking required access to rare resources that I can't find today in an Internet age.

Not a "normal" autobiography, this seemed a stream of consciousness collection of "people I knew" and some "things I've done" memoir and Gardner knew a lot of people. He talks about pubs and restaurants, colleges and classes, obscure poetry and the not-news-to-me revelation of and reasons for his belief in God.

That subtle wit that insulted cranks and quacks without them knowing it wasn't necessary here, and as I noted, he set it aside in many places. A few chuckles (emphasis mine):

[on "creeping socialism"] "...said Alan Greenspan in one of his rare intelligible remarks."

[on Dianetics} "Years later Hubbard added to the therapy a wild, idiotic mythology..."

[on cranks] "Each year an untold number of people die as a result of putting their trust in Christian Science or some other form of medical crap such as homeopathy."

Priceless gems! and about time.

No puzzles to solve - though he references a few and names some conjuring tricks...something for the readers to pull the thread on, should they choose. He unabashedly doesn't qualify his assessment of a few poems as "perfect", though I don't have his ear for them. And his admiration of G.K. Chesterton doesn't fit the image of the man who helped found the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Props to the man, though. If I had heroes, he'd be one. ( )

Too disjointed and disorganised, and for my liking too much about what he "believed" and not enough about what he did. ( )

"_Scientific American_ called the column Mathematical Games ... The rest is history." (p 135) So recounts this memoir by Martin Gardner (1914-2010). There's not much math here (recreational or otherwise), but quite a bit of poetry and way too much religion. One would have thought such an ardent debunker of pseudoscience would also have totally shunned the nonsense that is supernaturalism, but no. Many good-reading parts, such as those mentioning his encounters with such luminaries as Asimov, Conway, Dalí, Erdös, Fermi, Mandelbrot, Penrose.