Paulos, John Allen

• Innumeracy

  • This book is written by a mathematician, and it discusses the problem of mathematical illiteracy in our society. For $9 in large softcover, it is a bit expensive for the thin content. On the other hand, it is an entertaining book. It starts with too-many-to-count examples of basic probability and estimation (how fast does hair grow in miles per hour? how likely is it that in a room of n people, 2 or more have the same birthday? etc) and then goes on to talk about how different society would be if we could see through the common fallacies of everyday life (like, say, clutch-hitting in baseball). All in all, an entertaining book that will probably be more enjoyable the LESS you know about math (to a point...very knowledgeable readers may be bored since the first half of the book covers ground already taught in a college-level probability/statistics course). I look forward to the sequel ("A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper") when it eventually comes out in paperback.

• Beyond Numeracy

  • Along the same lines of "Innumeracy", I was hoping for more of the same when I found this hardcover for a good price at a bargain bookseller. Unfortunately, this book is more accurately just a series of mostly unrelated "newspaper columns" (I don't think Paulos is a columnist, but maybe he aspires to it?). As such, it gets pretty old after the first dozen or so because there is no clear theme that holds it all together. Maybe for someone less "mathematically literate" it would be more entertaining since most of the ideas here are old hat for anyone familiar with basic statistics or books such as Hofstader's "Godel, Escher, Bach". Then again, I could say the same about "Innumeracy", but I don't because it was more enjoyable.

• Once Upon a Number

  • More stories about mathematics and popular culture. The highlights of the book are the illuminating commentaries about new fads like "The Bible Code" (debunked in a very readable manner) and the stock market (though, to be fair, Malkiel does a more thorough job in his famous "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", reviewed elsewhere in my pages). A good chunk of this book, however, is frankly boring. It feels like Paulos is running out of good ideas.

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