Lewis Carroll`s

Sphere Packing, Lewis Carroll, and Reversi: Martin Gardner's New Mathematical Diversions (The New Martin Gardner Mathematical Library)
$50.00
An excellent collection of Martin Gardner's columns from Scientific American. I have several of Gardner's books, and this particular series is the best production quality of the ones that I own.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass
$10.99
The book was new, but defective. It looked like it was marked as defective by someone. A large black permanent marker was used to mark a line down the side of the book along the edges of the pages. I looked in the book to see what was wrong with it and a few of the pages were smeared but still legible. There should have been some indication that it was defective and what the defect was. I am assuming that new means new. New with a defect needs to be made clear. This is misleading.

The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition
$29.95
i was expecting a magical story about this wonderful little girl who goes on a great adventure and meets many amazing characters. it turns out Alice is a self centered little girl who annoys the creatures she meets and most of the creatures she meets are annoying too. with the ANNOTATED edition you get to find out Lewis Carroll liked to draw pictures of little girls in the nude. the esteemed scholars who annotate the book claim there was nothing inappropriate going on, but oh by the way, the real Alices mother did eventually prohibit Carroll from seeing her daughter. i guess the Disney folks forgot to put that part in the movie. overall it made for one huge disapointment and you shouldn't buy this story for yourself or your kids. On the plus side, Goodwill Books in Seattle did a great job of shipping the book, so hats off to them.

Alice In Wonderland
$5.95
I first read the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Signet Classics) books as a child, armed with my own library card. Throughout that experience, I was simply delighted by the wonderfully colorful illustrations and the fanciful tales. There was no issue of digging for deeper implications, puns, or wordplay. I still recall my fascination with the nonsensical creatures, as well as with Alice's adventurous dreamland.

As an adult, one can choose to delight in the obvious fantasy adventures or search for hidden meanings. Therefore, for the purpose of this exercise in which I foray into a reading challenge that will encompass these books and others that can be considered "retellings and sequels" or "literature with allusions and influences," I am choosing to simply enjoy revisiting a childhood treasure.

In any case, the most important aspects of these books are the creatively developed characters, especially the portrayal of Alice as a curious child who is obviously intelligent with layers of common-sense and creativity. Just following the characters in their upside-down or backwards adventures can be enough to intrigue the reader. All the reader must do is suspend disbelief for the purpose of the reading experience, which is not such a departure from many reading or movie-going encounters.

I plan to reserve my searching for hidden meanings for the other books that I will be exploring in the upcoming weeks.

This book is obviously a classic that has stood up to the test of time--it should be no surprise that I am giving it five stars.