Here are a few more book reviews.  I’m trying to read one non-fiction book per week … when it’s a good one, sleep seems optional!

Here's Looking at Euclid: a surprising excursion through the astonishing world of math, by Alex Bellos (Free Press, 2010)No, this is not a math book ... though there is a modicum of math within it and a couple well-described formulas. It is a book about math written for the curious non-mathematical reader, combining bits of history, interesting discoveries, and easily understood descriptions of what might be called the "mathematical pavement" that seems to underlay our daily reality. The author is a journalist, not a professional mathematician, so the emphasis is on "what is interesting" rather than any close examination of the "whys" and "wherefores" of mathematical functions. It is structured by theme so that each chapter can be read independently. It opens with an anthropological investigation into numbers -- some hunter/gatherer cultures have no numbers above two (as in 1, 2, many). It closes with an investigation of non-Euclidean geometry as exemplified through a very odd piece of knitting. It is an entertaining read throughout.For high school and above.

Whirlwind: the air war against Japan, 1942-1945, by Barrett Tillman (Simon and Schuster, 2010).Most people know that World War Two was brought to an end with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is the story of how that came to pass after many months of high explosive and fire bombing had laid waste to Japan's cities and had strangled industrial production.There are several well-developed story lines. One is the problem-plagued development and slow deployment of the B-29 Superfortress bomber, another is the …More