Stay-At-Home Bookrun

The Midstate review of books I haven't read: shipment from Hamilton.

I got out of the habit of ordering books for years but seem to be getting back into it. I wrote up a Bigbox Bookstore run a few months back and it even got somebody's attention (mentioned in an e-mail). And I sure used to like trading with Ned IGOTS Brooks, whose zine, It Goes On The Shelf, consists each issue almost entirely of "books received".

Ethan D. Bolker. Elementary Number Theory: An Algebraic Approach (2007 reprint [Dover] of 1970 original [W.A. Benjamin]). Dover Publications is of course the best friend an impoverished math-student bookjunkie ever had; this lists at 14 bucks (and I'll have had it for about 5; I'm not gonna go digging up the data on these). They've done a redesign and this looks somehow classier than the dozens of Dovers I already owned. I've forgiven them for this in my heart. I've been boning up on ANT so this was a natural. My Ireland & Rosen is badly damaged and I can't read it for pleasure.

Paulo Ribenboim The Little Book of Bigger Primes (second edition; Springer 2004). I've opened this here and there and most of what my eyes fell on made pretty good sense right away which is pretty rare in a math book. Real number theory in as readable a style as that allows.

George G. Szpiro Poincare's Prize: The Hundred-Year Quest to Solve Math's Greatest Puzzles (Dutton [Penguin USA]). Nobody acquainted with the story and with the name of this blog will be surprised to learn that I turned first to Chapter 12, where Grigori Perelman's part of the story begins. It's in "popular" style, with all the metaphor-torturing (and lack of equations) that that entails... but good. I read the review (PDF) in the Notices last year more or less of course. Here, with ads for days of course (from the New Yorker), is "Manifold Destiny" (Sylvia Nasar and David Gruber on the Perelman affair).

Douglas Hofstadter. I Am A Strange Loop (Basic Books 2007). This one's at the top of the most-likely-to-be-read-straight-through list. So far, overnight guest Henry has read most of the first chapter but I've looked at none of it. My admiration for Professor Hofstadter is a matter of quasi-public record (I praised GEB and Le Ton beau in my zine).

Havi Carel & David Gamez, editors. What Philosophy Is. (Continuum, 2004.) I'm pretty ignorant in philosophy; what the heck.

Simon Blackburn. Truth: A Guide (Oxford U Press, 2005). I'll probably start with the chapter on Neitzsche and go on from there if I like that. Professor Blackburn has a rather quaint homepage.

That's it... but there's already another list on the back of the latest "New Arrivals" catty. Intro Circle Pack, Stalking Riemann...