I started writing maths books because I wanted to share my love of the subject with people who had never really engaged with it at school. I soon discovered that the hardest part is getting somebody to start reading the book in the first place. Why read a book about maths unless you’re already into maths? Over the years I’ve found that the best way of engaging adults in maths is by linking it to things they are interested in – ‘the maths of everyday life,’ if you will. When you add to that a combination of stories, humour, and surprises, I’ve found it’s possible to reveal the joys of mathematics to a much wider audience.
I wrote
Maths on the Back of an Envelope: Clever Ways to (Roughly) Calculate Anything
This novel had me gripped from the first page. It’s a very different sort of ‘Whodunit?’ mystery, narrated by Christopher, a teenager who (we assume) has some form of Asperger’s syndrome. The book is funny and moving, and a huge hit in book groups and high school English classes. And yet…this is really a story about maths. Christopher is studying for his Maths ‘A level’ (school-leaver) exam, and he peppers the text with mathematical ideas, giving an insight into the way mathematicians think. There’s even a geometrical proof in the appendix. The author Mark Haddon was able to convey his own love of maths by putting his knowledge into the voice of an obsessive. Despite the amount of maths content, I’ve never heard anyone say that the maths put them off.
'Mark Haddon's portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind is a superb achievement... Wise and bleakly funny' Ian McEwan
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a murder mystery novel like no other. The detective, and narrator, is Christopher Boone. Christopher is fifteen and has Asperger's Syndrome. He knows a very great deal about maths and very little about human beings. He loves lists, patterns and the truth. He hates the colours yellow and brown and being touched. He has never gone further than the…
Among my children’s bedtime stories The Number Devil was a favourite. It’s about a boy who finds his school maths lesson dull and pointless. One night in his dreams he gets visited by the Number Devil, who introduces him to the astonishing patterns to be found in numbers. By making the lead character a maths-sceptic, the author carries the reader along so that we are all drawn into the hidden beauty of mathematics. The book has wonderful colour illustrations, which adds to its charm. Parents love it too.
Twelve-year-old Robert hates his maths teacher: he sets his class boring problems and won't let them use their calculators. Then in his dreams Robert meets the Number Devil, who brings the subject magically to life, illustrating with wit and charm a world in which numbers can amaze and fascinate, where maths is nothing like the dreary, difficult process that so many of us dread. The Number Devil knows how to make maths devilishly simple.
Everyone knows the story of Alice and Wonderland. It’s a book full of logical twists and eccentric characters, seen through the eyes of Alice who seems to be the only sensible person in a zany upside-down world. It’s a surprise to discover that this book was written by a dull Oxford University maths lecturer called Charles Dodgson. Through his alter-ego Lewis Carroll, Dodgson used the character of Alice to explore many of the playful, philosophical aspects of mathematics and logic: infinity, paradoxes, symmetry, and abstraction. Arithmetical ideas crop up all over the place, often nonsensical until you realise that numbers can be counted in different bases, and that there is more than one type of geometry for studying shapes.
When Alice sees the White Rabbit running by on the river bank, she follows him, tumbling down a Rabbit Hole into a magical world where nothing is ever as it seems...
Lewis Carroll's classic story has delighted children since 1865. One hundred and fifty years since its first publication, Hodder celebrates in style with this sumptuous new edition, illustrated by Rebecca Dautremer, whose dreamlike illustrations bring vibrant new life to Carroll's beloved characters. The original text appears complete and unabridged.
Rebecca Dautremer is the celebrated illustrator of The Secret Lives of Princesses.
When this story was first featured as a radio comedy series, it grabbed the imagination of a generation of teenagers and students. I was one of them. The plot revolves around Arthur Dent, a bewildered Englishman who escapes from Earth just before the planet is destroyed to make way for an intergalactic hyperspace bypass. Dent discovers that Earth was created by a supercomputer called Deep Thought, attempting to find the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe and Everything. Many ideas in the book, such as the Restaurant at the edge of the universe, have a mathematical edge to them. And when it emerges that the answer to the Ultimate Question is 42, we’re left wondering if life is really just one giant mathematical problem.
This box set contains all five parts of the' trilogy of five' so you can listen to the complete tales of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Bebblebrox and Marvin the Paranoid Android! Travel through space, time and parallel universes with the only guide you'll ever need, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Read by Stephen Fry, actor, director, author and popular audiobook reader, and Martin Freeman, who played Arthur Dent in film version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He is well known as Tim in The Office.
The set also includes a bonus DVD Life, the Universe and…
The Rocket Boys is a heartwarming memoir about a group of boys growing up in a mining town in West Virginia in the 1950s. Inspired by Sputnik and the space race, the boys start building rockets on the edge of town. There is a delightful chapter where maths geek Quentin realises that in order to get the rockets to fly higher, the boys are going to need to study ‘calculus.’ They decide to lobby their math teacher to give them extra lessons, but he refuses, as he doesn’t think they have the aptitude. I love this reversal of the normal situation where students reject the pleas of teachers. It’s a reminder that anyone can relate to maths if we can see its purpose.
(The book was turned into a film, and renamed October Sky, an anagram of Rocket Boys, so that it would appeal to a wider family audience.)
Three years in the life of Homer 'Sonny' Hickam, from the moment he sees the Sputnik satellite overhead in West Virginia to his successful launch of a prizewinning rocket.
In 1957, Coalwood, West Virginia, was a town the post-war boom never quite reached, and dominated by the black steel towers of the mine. For fourteen-year-old Homer 'Sonny' Hickam there are only two routes in life: a college football scholarship, or a life underground. But from the moment the town turns out to watch the world's first space satellite, Sputnik, as it passes overhead,…
This entertaining book shows you how to figure out numbers without resorting to a calculator – and explains why it’s still a valuable skill in this electronic age. Packed with amusing anecdotes and handy mathematical tips, it’s an invaluable introduction to the essential art of estimation and a welcome reminder that sometimes our own brain is the best tool for dealing with numbers.
“A joyful primer about the lost art of calculating without a calculator.” – The Guardian
Every picture tells a story, but it’s not always the one we expect or remember. Christmas Actually is a festive drama about family and forgiveness and a snapshot of modern family life, addressing Instagram to motherhood and everything in between.
Why Christmas? My publisher wanted my new novel to have a festive theme, specifically set in Australia–sun, surf, sunburn, and prawns. Christmas in Australia is very different from Christmas in the UK, USA, and Canada. We typically wear shorts and t-shirts, eat salad and seafood for Christmas lunch, and play beach cricket in the afternoon. Despite the season, conflicts, secrets,…
Time spent with family can be challenging, especially at Christmas actually…
Kate Cavendish is stuck in a rut. That is until a former colleague contacts her and offers her a chance to fulfil her lifelong dream of becoming a successful photographer.
With her focus pulled in all directions by her children, her pregnant sister, her newly-dating mother, and the niggling worry that her husband might be having an affair, Kate is filled with self-doubt.
Then as the countdown to Christmas begins, and memories of her own childhood resurface, Kate’s anxiety deepens – both personally and professionally. Can she move on…
