Curious, by Lily Serna

Title: Curious: Life hacks through maths
Author: Lily Serna
Genre/ issues: STEM, maths, numbers and patterns in everyday life.

I started Curious by Lily Serna yesterday on the way home, read a few chapters on the couch last night with Minerva overseeing, and have just finished it on the train into the city. What a joy this book is! I know it’s anathema to say, as you’re supposed to either be English or Maths and never the Twain shall meet, but I’ve always been a bit of a number nerd.
Curious is a delightful romp through dinner party maths, monopoly strategy, and how to look smart through quick mental calculation tricks. Any book which dedicates a few pages to working our value for money when ordering pizza has my vote, and the section on the Special Pancake Number had me smiling so hard. Lily’s sheer joy for maths is contagious, and she does that rare and wonderful thing of taking potentially challenging and confronting ideas and breaking them down into supportive and simple components so that those who think they aren’t really maths people can come away with something new.
I love her view that “arithmetic is to maths what words are to English. Words are, of course, the building blocks of language. However the value of a beautiful piece of processor a poem is greater than the sum of the words that form them.” Patterns, processes and predictions in maths are fascinating, and I’d recommend this book for both number nerds and the number challenged alike. It’s a really friendly, funny and supportive romp through maths in your everyday life. 

#TamaraReads #2020readingchallenge 7/52

Happy reading,