BOOKSHELF
A man is known by the books he reads. —Emerson
New and Noteworthy Titles on Our Bookshelf
June/July 2016
One Hundred Twenty-One Days, by
Michèle Audin (translated from the
French by Christiana Hills, Deep
Vellum Publishing, April 2016). This
is a translation of Cent vingt et un
jours (2014), the debut novel by
Michèle Audin, a geometer at the
University of Strasbourg. Having
turned to fiction writing in the past
several years, Audin is a member
of Oulipo, a literary group founded by mathematicians
and novelists around 1960. In this extraordinary book,
Audin melds various narrative modes—storytelling, diary
writing, newspaper clippings—to paint a picture of lives
shaped and often ruined by war. Mathematics and mathematicians flow through the tale. Drawing its power from
concrete details rooted in real life, the book nevertheless
has a dream-like—and sometimes nightmarish—quality.
Audin’s latest novel, La formule de Stokes (Cassini, 2016),
is presently available only in French.
Circularity: A Common Secret
to Paradoxes, Scientific Revolutions and Humor, by Ron Aharoni
(World Scientific, June 2016). This
brief book deftly treats weighty
matters with a light touch. Aimed
at the general reader, it examines
the theme of circular statements
as they arise in everyday life, science, and mathematics. An example of the type of “circular” statement Aharoni deals
with is “This sentence is a lie.” After an excursion into how
such paradoxical statements are treated by philosophers,
Aharoni turns to mathematics, looking at the work of Cantor, Gödel, Turing, and others. Jokes with circular themes
are sprinkled throughout the book (“I used to think I was
indecisive, but now I’m not so sure.”), and the book closes
with a chapter considering why circularity so often arises
in humor.
670
A Doubter’s Almanac, by Ethan Canin.
Random House, February 2016. The
seventh novel by medical doctor
and writer Ethan Canin, A Doubter’s
Almanac has as its main character a
brilliant but flawed mathematician,
Milo Andret. Milo grows up in the
1950s in rural Michigan, gets a PhD
in mathematics at UC Berkeley (where
his advisor tells him, “You’ve been
chosen by God”), proves a deep result
called the Malosz Conjecture, and becomes a professor at
Princeton. But Milo’s life is marred by his compulsively
self-absorbed personality and addiction to alcohol and
drugs. The second part of the novel has a sudden shift
in point of view, with Milo’s son Hans taking over the
telling of the story. Having inherited Milo’s mathematical
talent, Hans tries to understand how to avoid following
in his father’s self-destructive footsteps. The book has
received mixed reviews; reactions range from “blazingly
intelligent” to “relying on cringe-worthy clichés.” And
the mathematics? Generally reviewers seem in awe of it.
Some urge readers not to be put off. “A Doubter’s Almanac is a long, complex novel about math, which sounds
like the square root of tedium,” writes Ron Charles in the
Washington Post, “but suspend your flight instinct for a
moment.” Has a mathematician reviewed the book for a
major media outlet? If you have seen such a review, please
let us know by posting a comment on the Notices web site
www.ams.org/notices.
Fiction fans take note: As this installment of the
Bookshelf includes two novels, it is worth mentioning the
Mathematical Fiction website maintained by Alex Kasman
at the College of Charleston (kasmana.people.cofc.
edu/MATHFICT/). This is no doubt the most comprehensive resource in existence of fiction involving mathematics
and mathematicians. The site also contains brief reviews
of many of the works.
Suggestions for the Bookshelf can be sent to [email protected].
We try to feature items of broad interest. Appearance of
a book in the Notices Bookshelf does not represent an
endorsement by the Notices or by the AMS. For more, visit
the AMS Reviews webpage www.ams.org/news/math-inthe-media/reviews.
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VOLUME 63, NUMBER 6