For twenty-five years, Martin Gardner wrote 'Mathematical Games and Recreations', a monthly column for Scientific American magazine. These columns have inspired hundreds of thousands of readers to delve more deeply into the large world of mathematics. He also made significant contributions to magic, philosophy, debunking pseudoscience, and children's literature. He produced more than 60 books, including many best sellers, most of which are still in print, and wrote a regular column for the Skeptical Inquirer magazine from 1983 to 2002. His Annotated Alice has sold more than a million copies.

'Martin Gardner's fifteen volumes about mathematical games are the Canon – timeless classics that are always worth reading and rereading.' Don Knuth

• 1. The paradox of the unexpected hanging; 2. Knots and Borromean rings; 3. The transcendental number e; 4. Geometric dissections; 5. Scarne on gambling; 6. The church of the fourth dimension; 7. Eight problems; 8. A matchbox game-learning machine; 9. Spirals; 10. Rotations and reflections; 11. Peg solitaire; 12. Flatlands; 13. Chicago magic convention; 14. Tests of divisibility; 15. Nine problems; 16. The eight queens and other chessboard diversions; 17. A loop of string; 18. Curves of constant width; 19. Rep-tiles: replicating figures in the plane; 20. Thirty-seven catch questions.