Ian Stewart is arguably the UK's best raconteur of mathematics - here he takes on some of the extremes of the mathematical world, and in doing so gives us some real insights into what makes mathematicians tick. There's a good mix here of the flashy fun aspects of maths - think, for instance of the wonders of infinity or the monster group - and the solid everyday that nonetheless can turn up surprises. The book is littered with little insights. For example, if we think it's easy to work out the area of a rectangle by dividing it up into unit squares, what do you do with one that measures square root of two by pi? You'll find yourself jumping around from what lies beneath calculus to game theory (rock, paper, scissors anyone? - I hadn't realised a version of this game dates back around 2,000 years). One minute you'll be considering colouring maps and the next finding the shortest distance between two points on a curved surface. Some of the mathematics here has eve...

Without doubt one of the most original science fiction books I've ever read. With a mix of narrative and reports (featuring occasional redaction-like antimimetic decays) we are introduced to the work of the Organisation, which takes on weird happenings in the world, from conventional monsters and ghosts to those central to this story. A large contingent of Organisation staff deal with mimetics - ways that concepts can spread in a non-natural fashion and have to be controlled. But a smaller group deals with antimimetics - concepts and even living things that are able to remove themselves from human memory. One of our first introductions to antimimetics is when a senior civil servant summons a supposed spy to his office, only to discover that she is in fact the head of the Antimimetics Division: an antimimetic has stopped the civil servant from taking the medication that enables him to remember the Division's existence, so he is totally unaware of it. This kind of convoluted comp...

Going on the cover you might think this was a political polemic - and admittedly there's an element of that - but the reason it's so good is quite different. It shows how behavioural economics and social psychology have led us astray by putting the focus way too much on individuals. A particular target is the concept of nudges which (as described in Brainjacking ) have been hugely over-rated. But overall the key problem ties to another psychological concept: framing. Huge kudos to both Nick Chater and George Loewenstein - a behavioural scientist and an economics and psychology professor - for having the guts to take on the flaws in their own earlier work and that of colleagues, because they make clear just how limited and potentially dangerous is the belief that individuals changing their behaviour can solve large-scale problems. The main thesis of the book is that there are two ways to approach the major problems we face - an 'i-frame' where we focus on the individual ...

I hope you enjoy my online reviews and posts. These will always be free to read.  But if you ever feel the urge to support my online work, you're very welcome to buy me a virtual coffee. You can do this using the button below, which will also be available at the bottom of each post.    (If you've already seen this from the Now Appearing blog, please excuse the repetition!) Image from  Unsplash  by Nathan Dumlao.  These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee or taking out a membership: 

This book is something of a reboot. It was Neil deGrasse Tyson's first title, dating back to 1997, but was reissued 'fully revised and updated for the 21st century' in 2024. It's mostly a cut and paste book from the Q&A section in a magazine, despite which (or perhaps because of which) it's one of Tyson's better books. The idea is that the questions are answered by Merlin who is 'a visitor from the Andromeda galaxy who is as old as Earth and who has observed all major scientific events of Earth history.' Although some of the questions are from children (and the illustrations look like they were drawn by one) it's intended to appeal to all ages. The book is split into 13 sections, mostly with astronomical topics (such as Earth, Moon, Planets, Black Holes and Quasars), though with a couple of more physics-based sections including Gravity and Light and Telescopes. The questions themselves vary from entertaining thought experiments such as 'What ...

The sequel to Artifact Space is another wrist-busting, high class space opera, again featuring a sort of Star Trek future but where the ships are primarily merchant/military instead of exploration/military. I gave the original book 5 stars, but I've marked this one down, partly because I've already read the third in the sequence, Whalesong , and that one is significantly better. There's still a lot to like about Deep Black . Its action sequences are engaging. There's lots of impressive detail about the ships and life on them - and a far more realistic impression of the less exciting rest of life onboard than you get from most space opera. And there is a lot more on the difficulties of communicating with aliens, which is cleverly handled. But like its predecessor it is too long, and there is just far too much of the detail of daily life for central character Marca Nbaro as she goes about her daily routine. Routine gets a little dull. To add to the negatives, the writing...