Her entry begins:I’m on a David Mitchell jag at the moment. I started with his latest book, The Bone Clocks. And then I went to Black Swan Green, which I distinctly remember eyeing on the new books table when it came out in 2006, at Book City near my house in Toronto, but for whatever reason I wasn’t taken in at the time. However, it was definitely meant to be. My copy now has several dog-eared pages (though I am conflicted on whether or not this is an advisable practice; my husband thinks not). For instance, therein I found: “Fitting words together makes time go through narrower pipes but faster.” I think that is notion is true of writing, and reading, both. Reading can be challenging. And at the moment I’m...[read on]About Genius At Play, from the publisher:
An unabashed original, John Horton Conway is Archimedes, Mick Jagger, Salvador Dali, and Richard Feynman all rolled into one--a singular mathematician, with a rock star's charisma, a sly sense of humor, a polymath's promiscuous curiosity, and a burning desire to explain everything about the world to everyone in it.Learn more about the book and author at Siobhan Roberts' website.
Born in Liverpool in 1937, Conway found fame as a barefoot Cambridge professor. He discovered the Conway groups in mathematical symmetry, and invented the aptly namedsurreal numbers, as well as the cult classic Game of Life--more than a cool fad, Life demonstrates how simplicity generates complexity and the game provides an analogy for all mathematics and the entire universe. Moving to Princeton in 1987, as a mathemagician he deployed cards, ropes, dice, coat hangers, and even the odd Slinky as props to extend his winning imagination and share his mathy obsessions with signature contagion. He is a jet-setting ambassador-at-large for the beauties of all things mathematical.
Genius At Play is an intimate investigation into the mind of an endearing genius, laying bare Conway's personal and professional idiosyncrasies. The intimacy comes courtesy of the man himself. He generously granted Roberts full access, though not without the occasional grudge and grumble: "Oh hell," he'd say. "You're not going to put that in the book. Are you?!?"
The Page 69 Test: King of Infinite Space.
The Page 99 Test: Wind Wizard.
Writers Read: Siobhan Roberts.
--Marshal Zeringue
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