Mathematical Fiction
is a nice site maintained by Alex Kasman and is an
attempt to collect information about all significant references to
mathematics in fiction. In september I ordered a pile of novels from
this list from Amazon and had an enjoyable read (mostly) since.
I’ve mentioned a couple of books already on this blog and at one
time had the intention of writing about each book I finished. But,
I’m not very good at refereeing/reviewing, so not much came out of
this… Still, the MathFiction list is an excellent way to
discover authors and books you probably wouldn’t encounter
otherwise. So far, I read about 15 novels from the list, focussing on
mystery (rather than SF or any other of the categories the list let you
choose from). Here is a list of the ten I liked most, in order (with
links to the relevant MathFiction page)
- In search of Klingsor, by Jorge Volpi
- Popco, by Scarlett Thomas
- Lord Byron’s novel ‘The Evening Land’, by John
Crowley - The Oxford Murders, by Guillermo Martinez
- Nymphomation, by Jeff Noon
- The fractal murders, by Mark Cohen
- Improbable, by Adam Fawer
- Calculating God, by Robert J. Sawyer
- The wild numbers, by Philibert Schogt
- Signal to noise, by Eric S. Nylund
If you
are interested in the lives of mathematicians and physicists living
around 1940, buy the first one. If not, try the second one and read more
about the author here, including her
neverending
interview…
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