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The summer of 1972 my family moved to another part of town, to a new neighborhood. In those odd, alienated days of late June I remember exploring my new neighborhood and discovering the local branch of our town library. It was carved into the stage left wing of my new school's cafetorium, a room perhaps ten feet wide and forty feet long. Seeing that our family of six had just moved from a two-bedroom apartment to a spacious three-bedroom house the smallness didn't seem unusual or limiting to me; cramped living arrangements happened in the world, libraries included. The library was an open-armed sanctuary with a choice selection of books for a lonely 11 year old boy. That library and its books shaped a lot of who I am as a person and a reader.
I was probably looking for books I already knew – Pick a Peck of Puzzles by Arnold Roth seems likeliest – when I stumbled onto Martin Gardner. I remember Perplexing Puzzles looking very approachable, with clear language and Laszlo Kubinyi's pen and ink illustrations, even though I often couldn't solve the riddles or puzzles. Unlike many of the other similar books intended for children the puzzles didn't talk down to me as a reader or go for short term entertainment; the problems invited contemplation even after I had given up and gone in search of the answers in the back of the book.
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Edward Lear wasn't far behind, and books of codes and ciphers, Ray Bradbury and Vonnegut closely after that. Although it sometimes seems like very distinct, wildly disparate times in my reading timeline the through-line from Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House is a scant two years. And in between I don't know how many times I went back to Gardner to help pull at the taffy of my brain and expand it further into shape for lateral thinking.
I don't know that the current generation of emerging adolescent readers have anyone doing for them what Gardner did for me back then, but at least his books are still in print and widely available just in case.
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Martin Gardner gave a long interview to The Two-Year College Math Journal in 1979. It was drastically cut to fit into the magazine's pages. I dredged up the raw transcript and have posted it for the benefit of Martin's fans, who might like to read his responses and reminiscences.
Martin Gardner Interview
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