READING a book of mathematical games and puzzles can be like wading through treacle: it looks inviting but it’s all too easy to become bogged down. Not so with Ian Stewart’s menagerie of mathematical jokes, puzzles and treats. has a genius for explanation that allows details of the Poincaré conjecture and Riemann hypothesis to sit happily alongside a quip about a chicken crossing a Möbius strip. Find a comfortable chair for some holiday puzzling: mathematics doesn’t come more entertaining than this.
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Profile Books (USA: Basic Books)