Forget magic. Benjamin delivers a primer generously filled with insights and intuitions that make math approachable,...
An enthusiastic celebration of the beauty of mathematics.
Benjamin (Mathematics/Harvey Mudd Coll.; co-author: The Fascinating World of Graph Theory, 2015, etc.) brings to this book the stage presence of a video lecturer who has contributed math programs to the Great Courses series. Indeed, the book is a distillation of one of those courses and is filled with the patter, puns, and occasional poetry of the stage performer. Presumably because he also loves magic and has learned tricks of the trade, the author compares the workings of math to magic. This is misleading because, as he well acknowledges, math is based on logic and proofs—not magic at all. Benjamin does a fine job of explaining the variety of proofs that math uses (by contradiction, induction, etc.). He begins with a chapter on numbers, number patterns, and tricks on doing mental arithmetic. He then moves on with what is essentially a high school syllabus on algebra, Euclidean geometry, and trigonometry, with a few chapters on Fibonacci series, pi, and probabilities. The author provides several different proofs of well-known results like the Pythagorean theorem. The going gets tougher as Benjamin moves on to more advanced math in the form of complex numbers, e, and calculus. Here, the author is more skilled at telling rather than showing as he introduces how e, for example, appears in odd places and amazing equations. He does a better job at explaining differential (but not integral) calculus, but he devotes much of that chapter to how to differentiate certain functions—a nice tutorial for a test crammer, perhaps, but not of interest to general readers. A final chapter on infinities is better articulated and interestingly shows how performing a few illegal tricks with infinite series can yield astonishing answers.
Forget magic. Benjamin delivers a primer generously filled with insights and intuitions that make math approachable, interesting, and, yes, beautiful.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-465-05472-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Brisk, sharp, and elegant.
Film critic and memoirist Sayre (Previous Convictions, 1995) recalls her astonishing circle of acquaintances in mid-1950s London.
“Like millions of young Americans with knapsacks and bicycles,” she writes, Sayre headed to England at 22 to find what London might hold. There her resemblance to any typical American youth ends. The daughter of a New Yorker writer, she was soon taken up by her parents’ London friends (a cross-section of the period’s intelligentsia that few 22-year-olds could ever dream of meeting) and enjoyed a five-year stay in the company of history makers. Her first apartment came courtesy of Arthur Koestler, Tyrone Guthrie hired her to research scripts for his theater company, critic John Davenport helped her navigate the London literary scene, and A.J. Liebling became her dinner companion. In the wrong hands, such a tale could be insufferably smug; happily, Sayre is a charming raconteur with a light comic touch that comes into play when she recalls such incidents as Graham Greene, outraged by a savage review from Liebling, running in circles around her and a companion who had been seen with Liebling earlier in the evening. Interleaved with tales of stars—Katherine Hepburn grousing about a friend’s rusty garden tools, Ingrid Bergman’s musings on Casablanca’s two final scenes—is fine political history. An extended chapter on the blacklisted Hollywood community gives vivid insight to the motivations of the exiles and provides an excellent précis of what was happening in the artistic community back home, long before most Americans had a comprehensive view of the anticommunist battle. “All this history was new to me. . . . About twenty years passed before it was publicly discussed in my own country.” Sayre is not above the tasty details, however; she lards her entire narrative with descriptions of who wore what and how their houses were decorated.
Brisk, sharp, and elegant.Pub Date: June 5, 2001
ISBN: 1-58243-144-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
A competent memoir about World War II Germany.
The story of a German family’s struggles during Hitler’s reign.
McIntosh attempts to explore–and perhaps atone for–the sins of Hitler’s Germany via this carefully related story of one family. Intimate tales of domestic drama mix with historical accounts of Hitler’s youth in Vienna, his entrance into German politics, rise to power and, ultimately, his demise. The author’s implication is clear–Hitler is a self-serving outsider who weasels his way, with more charm than integrity, into an essentially good nation, only to ruin it. McIntosh, a German born during Hitler’s rise, writes with a sense of contrition only truly available to those who directly experienced the dictator’s rule. However, she tends to insinuate her own perspective into her protagonists’ speech and thought. Her characters often speak as if they were reading from a 21st-century analysis of the crimes committed in Nazi Germany, possessing strong insight into the unfolding events. In the preface, McIntosh thanks a friend for ridding her manuscript of “Germanisms.” Though her writing remains free of such errors, it is clear that English is not her first language–the prose is clean but indicates that the composition cost her much time and effort. An able craftswoman, McIntosh has yet to elevate her writing to the level of art.
A competent memoir about World War II Germany.Pub Date: June 27, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7414-3971-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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