Off My Rocker:

Recommendations from a Book Nut

Mathematical Fiction
(December 2005)

Bertrand Russell once said " mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true."

Indeed so I have always felt but for Russell, himself a mathematician, to admit it comes as a bit of a shock. Even if he did mean it as a joke, I admit to a tiny surge of triumph when I first came across the quote. However there are some quite interesting tales that use math as a unifying principle. They are listed below for your reading pleasure.

INVISIBLE SIGN OF MY OWN, by Aimee Bender

Numbers speak to Mona Gray as might music or art to others. They help her to order her dis-orderly universe.

At the age of nineteen Mona is offered the job of teaching second grade math in her hometown. Good, yes? Well, perhaps not.

Mona’s father is afflicted by a long enervating illness that has caused him to detach from his family just at the time Mona needs him. In her efforts to stem her sense of loss, Mona takes a "leave it before it leaves you" attitude. If she loves an activity like running or playing the piano, she practices until she’s really good and then just stops.

Mona is weird and vulnerable and very lovable. Bender tells her story with skill and wit. Get your hankies out.

PIECE OF JUSTICE, by Jill Paton Walsh

Paton Walsh who has recently undertaken the completion of manuscripts left by Dorothy Sayers has a couple of mystery tales of her own. They feature nurse Imogen Quy (rhymes with why) of St. Agatha’s College, Cambridge.

A Piece of Justice deals with that worst of academic sins, plagiarism. Add to the mix obsession, mathematical theory, quilts, and murder.

Imogen’s student boarder, Fran is asked to ghost-write the biography of Gideon Summerfield, deceased mathematical fellow of St. Agatha’s. Old Gideon was a fairly humdrum academic save for one summer out of his life when he surprised his colleagues by a highly innovative mathematical discovery.

The problem is that Fran is the fourth person to attempt the biography; all the would-be biographers having run aground on the shoal of that one summer in Summerfield’s life. One has left the country, one has died of seemingly natural causes, one has simply disappeared.

The kindly and perceptive, Imogen is fond of Fran and fears that she too will meet a sticky end if she pursues the lost summer so Imogen does some investigating of her own.

This is a fascinating mystery keeping the reader guessing as to who did what and when.

Other mathematical tales for your reading pleasure are: Dark As Day, by Charles Sheffield, Wild Numbers, by Philibert Schogt, Sand-Reckoner, by Gillian Bradshaw, Guru Of Love, by Samrat Upadhyay, Fractal Murders, by Mark Cohen.