“Sigh. I’m 0 for 3 in recent books and movies!” That’s what I said to myself after finishing a book that I had recently taken out of the library. What I meant was that I had disliked all three of… Read More ›
Books
Journey through Mathematics: Creative Episodes in its History
Original sources are key when studying the history of anything, including mathematics. Most readers, however, have neither the time nor the knowledge nor the access to be able to read original sources, so we rely on secondary works, such as Journey… Read More ›
Of Dice and Men
Of Dice and Men is a great book for those who want to geek out for a few hours. I enjoyed it tremendously. It’s a sympathetic first-person overview of everything you wanted to know about Dungeons and Dragons, written by a Forbes… Read More ›
Lexicon
Mixed feelings here about Maxx Barry’s science fiction secret-organization thriller, Lexicon. Actually, I’m not sure that science fiction is the right genre. To the extent that linguistics and psychology are sciences, I suppose this novel counts as science fiction, but it’s pretty… Read More ›
Oh no, not another Jeopardy book!
Just look at the title! That’s all you need to do in order to know that Prisoner of Trebekistan: A Decade in Jeopardy! is a quirky book. I think this is the fourth book that I’ve read about Jeopardy, but let… Read More ›
Anathem
You don’t mind spending an hour or two on a Neal Stephenson novel, do you? OK, so Anathem is slightly over a thousand pages long…but it’s not much over a thousand. I mean, it’s not as long as Cryptonomicon, which clocks in at 1168 pages. Anathem is… Read More ›
Real Talk for Real Teachers
The full title of Rafe Esquith’s latest inspiring book is Real Talk for Real Teachers: Advice for Teachers from Rookies to Veterans: “No Retreat, No Surrender!” There’s rarely any need for a three-tiered title, but in this case I think it’s… Read More ›
The Autistic Brain
An absorbing and fascinating book, The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum should be read by anyone in education. The latest work of the famous Temple Grandin, a well-known autistic biology professor, explores not only autism as a disorder of the mind but… Read More ›
On Looking
“How do you like my new hairstyle?” “Um…what new hairstyle?” OK, I’m not the most observant person in the world, to put it mildly. But I’d like to get better. And I’m really interested in cities, and in psychology, and… Read More ›
The Golden Egg
The Golden Egg is another fine novel by Donna Leon. This thoughtful novel rewards slow, careful reading — don’t expect a fast-paced thriller here. As is usual in Leon’s books, the city of Venice (where Leon lives) is one of the… Read More ›
The Child’s Child
There’s no such thing as a bad book by Ruth Rendell. The Child’s Child, written under Rendell’s Barbara Vine pseudonym, must therefore be a good book. It’s the only possible logical deduction. Is The Child’s Child a mystery novel? Not really…. Read More ›
The Last Samurai
What a fascinating story! There are several books by this title, but I’m talking about the first novel by Helen DeWitt, published in the year 2000. If you know me, you won’t wonder which half of the story I liked… Read More ›
Blackout and All Clear
Time travel stories are tricky. The author must either ignore the inevitable paradoxes or must find some plausible device for resolving them. (In a few cases, there’s a third option: the author decides to wallow in paradoxes, which can put… Read More ›
The Cats’ House
What an amazing book! Or perhaps I should say “What an amazing house!” Bob Walker and his wife Frances have turned their house into a jungle gym for their nine cats, as you can see in this image. But… Read More ›
Isaac’s Storm and The Devil in the White City
Having read and enjoyed Erik Larson’s non-fiction account of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, I decided to read his tale about the flood that… Read More ›
Three philosophical novels: Goldstein, Sloan, and Barbery
Three of the novels that I read this summer are explicitly or implicitly built on philosophical themes: Rebecca Goldstein’s 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A work of fiction. With a title like that, you can see why a subtitle… Read More ›
Paul Lockhart
Three and a half years ago I wrote a post about Paul Lockhart’s book, Mathematician’s Lament. Now he has a new book, oddly titled Measurement. Why, you ask, is that title odd? It’s because the book is only peripherally about measurement. Mostly it’s… Read More ›
My Short, Happy Life in “Jeopardy!”
I reviewed Ken Jennings’s book Brainiac seven years ago. (Was it really seven years ago‽ Yes, it was!) So I figured I should also read the latest book by another Jeopardy champion, Brendan DuBois, whose short fiction I had read several times… Read More ›
Plagiarism: Pro and con
Pro and con? Perhaps you think this is a deliberately provocative title. Every teacher, after all, is vehemently against plagiarism, right? We are justifiably outraged when a student turns in a paper in which whole paragraphs are cribbed unattributed from… Read More ›
Not Harry Potter
Just finished reading the first of J.K. Rowling’s two post-Harry-Potter novels. This was The Casual Vacancy, the one she published under her real name. On the whole, my reaction was far more positive than negative. It has very little in common… Read More ›
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