Book Mentions....

First off, John Golden recently tweeted out this video on math and analogies from Kalid  Azad over at “Better Explained,” that I thought worth passing along (once again it touches on the interplay of math and language as I was musing about in my recent post, and as Jim Propp also broaches in his latest offering:

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(via: http://www.clipartsuggest.com )

Moving on, it’s been another great year in mathy popular books, with a mini-flurry of volumes showing up in the final three months of the year.  Of the books I’ve already read, I recently tweeted out my 5 faves, one of which I’ll soon cite as my 2018 ’book-of-the-year,’ but for now will hold ya all in suspense ;)

When Einstein Met Gödel -- Jim Holt

Math With Bad Drawings -- Ben Orlin

Exact Thinking In Demented Times -- Karl Sigmund

Closing the Gap -- Vicky Neale

Hello World -- Hannah Fry

Meanwhile, Thomas Lin (as editor) is newly-out with “The Prime Number Conspiracy,” a collection of pieces from that outstanding stable of writers at Quanta Magazine.  I haven’t seen it yet, but no doubt it would easily break into my select group above if I had.

And since citing the above, Mircea Pitici’s latest “Best Writing On Mathematics” for 2018 has appeared; delighted to see it materialize in my mailbox... knowing that Mircea has had some topsy-turvy changes in his life this year, I wasn’t sure he’d have the time/inclination to do another edition — but he has and it contains his typical variety of diverse selections (something for everyone). I received the volume just a couple of days after my Nov. 11 posting and so was heartened to see several picks in it dealing with creativity, paradox/puzzles, and beauty in math, as well as Wigner’s “unreasonable effectiveness” notion (all things I’d been thinking about lately).

From Brian Kernighan (and Princeton University Press) comes Millions, Billions, Zillions: Defending Yourself in a World of Too Many Numbers a small, stocking-stuffer-sized book aimed at bestowing basic numeracy to readers.

And am currently reading/enjoying “The Model Thinker” by Scott Page (from Basic Books) — a book for which I'd seen no prior buzz or publicity before its arrival. It’s another in the string of volumes covering big data, modeling, algorithms, probabilities and the like, for a mass audience, but with more textbook-like intros to an array of data/statistical subjects than most previous volumes have offered. Lots of interesting topics. If you’ve been looking for a ‘meatier,’ more mathematical, take in this genre this may be it.

Enough said for now… in another week or two I’ll have my final book wrap-up of the year (including a few additional book mentions) for anyone with math bibliophile friends-or-family on their Holiday list… or, for themselves!