An unusual supplement to every calculus textbook, Misteaks and How to Find Them before the Teacher Does is popular with students and teachers alike. Teachers love the way it encourages students to truly think about mathematics rather than simply plugging numbers into equations to crank out answers, and students love the author's straightforward, tongue-in-cheek style. The title of this light-hearted and amusing book might well have been "Going Gray in Elementary Calculus and How to Avoid it." Changing the metaphor, Barry has hit the nail on the finger in hundreds of fine examples. --Philip J....

Features the Poincare Conjecture, a hundred-year-old problem that has apparently been solved by Grigory Perelman of St Petersburg, Russia. This book also contains chapters on Venn diagrams and primality testing.

Mathematicians like to point out that mathematics is universal. In spite of this, most people continue to view it as either mundane (balancing a chequebook) or mysterious (cryptography). This book contradicts that view, showing that mathematics is indeed found everywhere.