Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Absolutely Everything Paperback – 25 May 2021

Sprinkled liberally with humor.....great depth of knowledge

Written like a novel with great sense of humour. Good quotes from great mathematicians.

I found some chapters to be interesting but others bored me and contained math concepts that were over my head. Your mileage may vary.

More mathematical than geometric. Good examples of how making predictions is fraught with errors. Great explanation of the famous ‘R’ number in Covid spread.

Published this year, 2021, I chose to buy this book after reading a favourable review in a UK broadsheet newspaper. Written during the Covid lockdown, by Jordan Ellenberg (whose other books I had not read), it has two interesting chapters (10 and 11) on the maths of epidemics.In PG Wodehouse terms, Jeeves would call this an ‘improving’ book, and I think it will appeal to those who would like to have a better understanding of mathematics. The book’s aim is for us to know how an understanding of geometry can help us to understand the world better. Whether the book achieves this, I suspect, will be personal to the individual reader. Ellenberg writes with great enthusiasm; at times slightly manically. The book is especially strong on the history of geometry and (new word to me), geometers; the first, Euclid, and later, of many mathematicians referenced, particularly Henri Poincaré, who lived a hundred years ago. The hardback is quite hefty, but I think this book will do well overall, especially if they bring out a slimmer soft back edition.

The skill of a good teacher is to judge where the audience is currently at, start from there and bring them on in small steps to greater understanding. Oh, and throw in some repetition to reinforce the learning. This is what Ellenberg does supremely well.You probably have to be a bit of a maths nerd to get all of what's in this book (and I am). He starts at a level that anyone can understand but ramps up quickly to some concepts that *will* exercise your brain buds. As a born and bred UK anglophone I found Ellenberg's language very readable, with few 'Americanisms', a cheeky humour, and not too many references to celebrities unknown in this country.If a question develops in your mind as he goes along it is either instantly answered, answered in a footnote, or immediately noted as having an answer later in the book.If I have a criticism it would be the chapter on gerrymandering is too long - too much politics and not enough maths! That's probably easier to digest for US readers who know their Democrats from their Republicans, which is the GOP and which is red and which blue, and who know the personalities involved. At the end I was left with a feeling that the chapter on politics was supposed to be the main course of the book until Covid came along. That allowed him to take the bits on the spread of infections (a recurring theme throughout) and bring them bang up to date. Never mind how it got there but what he says on pandemics is a must-read for anyone struggling with the barrage of statistics we've had to contend with in the last two years.Oh, and the hand-drawn illustrations are just fine by me.

There's plenty of good stuff in this book, but also a fair amount of waffle, plus some material that will be very familiar already to anyone who reads this kind of book. His previous book, How Not To Be Wrong, is definitely better and seems to be the result of greater effort.