Math Library

Fill out this form if you want to borrow a book, and I'll bring it in for you next time we have math circle! :)

Books About Math:

• The Grapes of Math (Alex Bellos)

This is a great one if you're looking to read a little bit about math for fun! It goes into some topics you've probably already seen in school (like exponential growth, or calculus for some of you) but it also includes some neat applications and lots of other topics you likely haven't seen. Bellos writes in a conversational tone, and there's plenty of humor to the stories he tells. It's NOT a textbook at all and is meant to be accessible to readers who aren't necessarily doing math all day every day.

• Love and Math (Edward Frenkel)

The author is a mathematician at UC Berkeley, who writes about his story growing up in the Soviet Union and his path into math research. Some of the bits in the book where he offers more detail on his area of research can be a challenge to read, but I still included it in the library because 1) His life story is fascinating, and 2) It's sometimes fun to read about topics that you don't quite understand yet, if only to get a sense of how vast the field is and what some of the open questions in it are.

Math and Art:

The first four of these books are "coffee table" books in the sense that they have a lot of pretty pictures and are fun to flip through if you don't necessarily want to read them cover to cover. The first two are the only ones that actually talk about math + art. Escher was known to make mathematically inspired art, and it's fun to puzzle over the optical illusions and ideas in his work. The last book (Escher on Escher) is a book of essays by the artist himself.

• The Golden Ratio: The Divine Beauty of Mathematics (Gary B. Misner)

• Math Art (Stephen Orner)

• Masters of Deception

• M.C. Escher (Taschen)

• Escher on Escher: Exploring the Infinite

Problem-Solving Books:

• Mathematics for the Million (Lancelot Hogben)

This book was published in 1936, and was meant as an introduction to the world of mathematics starting from basic arithematic all the way to calculus. Einstein supposedly said about this book that "It makes alive the contents of the elements of mathematics."

• Can You Solve My Problems? (Alex Bellos)

This book, and the one listed below, include lots of fun riddles and puzzles.

• Perilous Problems for Puzzle Lovers (Alex Bellos)

Novels/Short Stories/Poetry:

• Invisible Cities (Italo Calvino)

This book is not really about math at all and makes no reference to math. However, I think some of the "invisible cities" that are described are sort of like the invisible cities of math. I wrote about it more here.

• Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Edwin A. Abbott)

This is a classic novella about a society known as "Flatland" where the inhabitants are squares, lines, circles, and more. The book was meant as a social critique of hierarchy in Victorian England, but it's also a creative exploration of higher dimensions and time.

• The Aleph and Other Stories (Jorge Luis Borges)

Borges is known for his short stories, which often play with ideas of the infinite, time, and other abstractions.

• The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám (Omar Khayyám, translation by Edward Fitzgerald)

Omar Khayyám was a Persian poet, astronomer, and mathematician. There is a history of math and poetry being studied together (see here).

Math "Classics":

• The Elements of Euclid, Vols. I-III

• Oliver Byrne's Elements of Euclid

Textbooks:

• Calculus Vols. I-II (Tom

If you are currently taking calculus or have taken calculus, you've probably become familiar with the James Stewart Calculus books. The Apostol books introduce Calculus with proofs and in more depth. If you're interested in seeing Calculus presented differently, if you'd like to see another reference for what you're currently learning, or if you'd like to get a glimpse into proof writing, check any of these out! These are my favorite calculus references and maybe they will be yours too...

• The Calculus (Otto Toeplitz)