Continue readingOne of the great joys of mathematics is the incontrovertible feeling that you’ve understood something the right way, all the way down to the bottom.
Review articles
How Not To Be Wrong — Jordan Ellenberg
The Beat of the Pendulum — Catherine Chidgey
This experimental “found novel” is great. Once I got into it, it was like a beautifully edited minimalistic fly-on-the-wall documentary in print.
Every day for a year, Catherine Chidgey recorded or wrote down a conversation, email, overheard snippet, advertisement or some other piece of text. That’s what this book is. Initially it’s pretty disorienting as there’s only speech — no introductions, descriptions or even “he said” or “she said”. It takes a while to figure out who the characters are and what their relationships are. Even by the end of the book I was still losing track of who was talking during long conversations.
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Images — Ingmar Bergman
I have never seen an Ingmar Bergman film. They have always seemed to me to be the epitome of impenetrable, confusing European art-house cinema. This book doesn’t change that impression, but it does make me want to watch some of these films.
Continue readingMan’s Search for Meaning & Introducing Existentialism
Viktor Frankl was a doctor who spend several years during the second world war in concentration camps and forced labour camps, including Auschwitz. He writes about his experiences in the camps and about how camp life affected people — both the prisoners and the guards.
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Can You Solve My Problems? — Alex Bellos
You have a handful of coins spread out on the table in front of you. You put on a blindfold, and someone flips over some of the coins, then tells you how many are showing heads. You can now move the coins around and turn them over.
Continue readingThe Ten Types of Human — Dexter Dias
This book introduces ten types of human, such as the Aggressor, the Tribalist, the Nurturer, the Rescuer. They’re really types of personality, not human, since the idea is that human beings have all these traits to varying degrees. Each is illustrated by stories of people who have survived various extreme situations. Dias’s idea is that these people’s stories will illustrate the different types. I don’t think they all do, but they are mostly interesting nonetheless.
Continue readingThe Soul of the Marionette — John Gray
“Provocative and freewheeling” reads the blurb on this book. That’s a fair description, though “freewheeling” could just as well be “unfocused” or “rambling”. Gray claims that modern culture, especially western culture, pretends to be rationalistic and scientific but is actually just as religious as older faith-based cultures. In fact he treads the well-worn path of saying that the older cultures are more “authentic” and that what we have now is just a confused version of what came before:
Continue readingEverybody Lies — Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Google remembers every search anyone does. If you combine all that data in the right ways, you can come up with a lot of results, theories and conclusions. That’s what Seth Stephens-Davidowitz does in this book. The title comes from one of his conclusions: people say they do things (in surveys and so on) but the aggregated search data from Google shows that a large number of them are lying. It’s a clever idea and he draws out a lot of interesting material (enough to fill a book!). If you’ve ever typed “why does my cat” into Google just to see what suggestions pop up, then this book is for you.
A Cabinet of Philosophical Curiosities — Roy Sorensen
Continue readingEach day you must take an A pill and a B pill. After you tap an A pill into your palm you inadvertently tap two B pills into your hand. The A and B pills are indistinguishable. The pills are expensive and you must not overdose. Can you still use the pills you have mixed up?
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Elizabeth Smither — The Mathematics of Jane Austen
It was probably the title that enticed me to buy this collection of understated short stories. The title story is about a woman trying to write a thesis on the use of mathematical concepts in the writings of Jane Austen. It’s clever, amusing and likeable. I enjoyed reading the stories, which made a relaxing contrast to the harrowing writing of Lucia Berlin or Miranda July.
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