Book review: 'When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish' by Martin Gardner

Then as we linger at luncheon here,

O'er many a dainty dish,

Let us drink anew to the time when you

Were a Tadpole and I was a Fish.

Gardner's essay on "Evolution" praises metrical rhyming verse and tells us what little is known about the poem's author, the turn-of-the-century journalist Langdon Smith. A similar but even longer article discusses the forgotten Ella Wheeler Wilcox, best known for the line "Laugh and the world laughs with you;/Weep and you weep alone." Astonishingly popular in her day, Wilcox used her verse to champion what was called "New Thought," a "feel good" and "get rich" religious movement of the early 20th century. Norman Vincent Peale and his "power of positive thinking" is a later offshoot.

In general, "When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish" might be called a Martin Gardner sampler, bringing together both new pieces and golden oldies. It includes the personal essays "Why I Am Not a Paranormalist" and "Why I Am Not an Atheist," as well as several mathematical articles (one on Fibonacci sequences), an explanation for why remarkable coincidences aren't so remarkable ("Was the Sinking of the Titanic Foretold?"), several scathing critiques of religious fundamentalism (see, in particular, the pieces on Ann Coulter, Frank Tipler and Oral Roberts's son, Richard), and enthusiastic introductions to L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" and to G.K. Chesterton's "Tales of the Long Bow" and "The Coloured Lands." The book ends with a defense of democratic socialism. Overall, Gardner's main theme is still the one he has sounded for going on 60 years: "Our nation is weakened when large numbers of citizens . . . are scientific illiterates."

If you're already addicted to Martin Gardner's plain prose, gentle, reasonable voice, exhaustive research and relentless logic, you will want to add this book to your collection. If that collection is like my own, it's already quite a large one. Perhaps only Dana Richards -- Gardner's bibliographer and a computer science professor at George Mason University -- knows just how many books and magazine articles this lively polymath has given the world since the 1930s, when he began to write as a student at the University of Chicago. New readers, however, may find some of the earlier books mentioned above to be better first introductions than the "scribblings" and "stray pieces" of "When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish."

In one essay here -- on Hilaire Belloc's critique of Darwinism -- Gardner mentions being 94 years old and residing in an assisted living facility in his home town of Norman, Okla. He's still writing. While Martin Gardner has always called himself "strictly a journalist," he should really be honored as one of this country's greatest cultural treasures. President Obama, are you listening?

Michael Dirda -- mdirda@gmail.com -- appears each Thursday in Style. Visit his online book discussion at washingtonpost.com/readingroom.