Entertaining and infomative ...
New York Times
Gardner ... is the leading connoisseur of pseudoscientific tomfollery. Delightful.
Washington Post
Gardner writes with precision and grace and this book, like his others, is a consistent entertainment.
The Sciences
Not since his Science: Good, Bad and Bogus has there been such a bountiful offering of the delightful combination of drollery and horse sense that has made Martin Gardner the undisputed dean of the dritics of pseudoscience.
In The New Age: Notes of a Fringe-Watcher, Gardner confronts new trends in pseudoscience and the paranormal: from the much-publicised past-life exploits of Shirley MacLaine to the latest in perpetual-motion machines, from "prime-time preachers" to the "channeling mania" of the past few years.
Many of these pieces were published in Gardner's column in the Skeptical Inquirer. Others appeared in the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Discover magazine and other publications. Gardner has added forewords and/or afterwords to most of the chapters to give background, to bring recent developments to light, or to include responses from his critics.
Destined to be a classic of the skeptical literature, this book will be a welcome treat for Gardner fans and a rewarding adventure for his new readers.
Martin Gardner, who now lives in North Carolina, was the author of the "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American for many years. Among his other books are The Magic Numbers of Dr.Matrix; Science: Good, Bad and Bogus; and The Wreck of the Titanic Foretold? He is a founding Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal