Z/Web

Author: David Blatner

Essentially this is a little book of trivia about the most famous mathematical symbol. Unfortunately, unless you’re a mathematician (I’m decidedly not), the really interesting stuff’s incomprehensible. Blatner does nothing to explain basic math concepts (anyone remember what a factorial is?) and the result is complete gibberish. The history is mildly interesting, but the critical (the reason I read the book) question of what good is pi (i.e. “Why do we need it? What use does it serve?”) is never answered! (The closest he gets is one sidebar which explains how to compute your hat size using pi. Great, so thousands of people have spent decades of their lives trying to get a more accurate hat measurement!) Essentially this is a pointless book: there’s not enough real math to interest mathematicians and there’s too much for the layman. If you would like to read poems about pi and trivial things like that the sequence “123456789” first appears at the 523,551,502nd digit past the decimal point, go for it. Otherwise the most interesting thing is the book is that it prints (in microtype throughout the book) the first one million digits of pi.

Author: Robin Cook

Interesting, surprisingly well-written novel. I think I’m a Cook fan, unnerving as that may be. There’s nothing deep here, but the characters are well-defined and believable, and the action’s good. The novel runs a bit long (I was saying “Get on with it!” in a few places), but close attention isn’t required. (Excellent for reading during “Who Wants to be a Millionaire!”) The plot is bioterrorism: a Russian immigrant has created some weapons-grade anthrax and plans to release it in New York City. What I usually hate about books like this is that you know the good guys will catch the bad guys before the toxin’s released and save the world. Sure, you don’t know the how and the when, but the bad thing will never happen. Well, I won’t spoil the ending of this book, but that isn’t what happens here! Brilliant ending.