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mathbook.cafe
📚
@mathbook.cafe
October 5, 2025 at 1:03 AM
August 30, 2025 at 4:12 PM
I like the prosody in Felix Klien’s explanation of Bürgi logarithms. He’s writing with purpose and with pride of his students and country in a time of (relative) peace in Europe ca. 1904
August 22, 2025 at 12:33 PM
I hadn’t thought of the visual and cultural connections between Basquiat artistic style and the signatures of Haitian loa until I saw this inset in Zora Neale Hurston “Tell My Horse”

really obvious in retrospect
August 16, 2025 at 10:33 PM
August 11, 2025 at 12:35 AM
A retired mathematician brought a couple bags of her books into the shop today. The Coxeter was a good find— first edition good condition. I price it around $50 while bookfinder says there’s listings of very good copies in the hundreds
August 8, 2025 at 12:33 AM
Fun Life-Making
August 7, 2025 at 10:52 AM
August 1, 2025 at 3:08 AM
one lesson an anti-capitalist technologist can draw from the story is that the product ("data") can be used to turn against the same culture that abuses its consumption. Kadallah seems to recognize this possibility
July 29, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Papa LaBas is the main protagonist of Mumbo Jumbo. He works towards reviving Afro American culture through teaching HooDoo. He’s an imperfect example of author Ishmael Reed’s NeoHooDoo — Reed shows why in this scene following where his assistant Earline has been exorcised if a loa
July 29, 2025 at 4:27 PM
July 28, 2025 at 11:26 PM
- Garner, Bryan A., The Chicago Guide to Grammar, Usage, and Punctuation
- Garner, Bryan A., Garner’s Modern English Usage
- The Chicago Manual of Style

are the three best resources an editor can have in the office, in my opinion
July 25, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Here’s John T Frederick introducing a collection edited by Sylvestre C Watkins for The Modern Library in 1943. This’ contemporaneous with the beginning of the March on Washington Movement — discussed by A Phillip Randolph in this volume — a generation before MLK famous “I have a dream” speech
July 25, 2025 at 3:46 PM
I’ve taken care for the science and mathematics sections at Bryn Mawr Bookstore, Cambridge, MA. Hence recent posts about various books.

Here’s an item #retrocomputing folks might like: Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis by John A Rice — includes an IBM PC floppy disk!
July 24, 2025 at 9:28 PM
two copies of Roger’s’ Theory of Recursive Functions and Effective Computability, 1967. Still advertised at a decent value online. I may borrow this copy for a couple weeks
July 24, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Milnor, John, Introduction to Algebraic K-Theory, Annals of Mathematical Studies, Princeton University Press, 1971.

This copy printed in Japan by Tokyo University Press
July 24, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Toomer, Wright, Ellison, Little (better known as “X”) all had very similar experiences. It’s largely the result of a rapidly industrializing yet socially repressive environment. They all had inconsistent outbursts of genius, then, well, various troubles…
July 24, 2025 at 5:38 PM
in other words, our national sins still pay dividends
July 23, 2025 at 4:48 PM
I feel this’ a good representation of Richard Wright’s key influences. Margaret Walker’s literary biography may be a bit uneven, somewhat strange in some places, but she does a monumental job pulling together a huge library and showing how it worked in his imagination to help produce his own writing
July 18, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Annette LePique for Newcity
July 18, 2025 at 1:53 AM
Does anyone else think of Cher when they think about Reagan’s Navy?
July 17, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Walker uses Gritting’s critique of Southey’s biography of Horatio Nelson to critique Fabre’s biography of Richard Wright

talk about literary history! using books about books to critique books about books to frame writing a book about books!

I love it
July 17, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Mark Tomczak gave a nice reinterpretation of Gilgamesh on Mastodon.

I need more (1) epic poetry reinterpretations and (2) cross-sharing between alt platforms
July 17, 2025 at 11:31 AM
BRUH 🧐
July 16, 2025 at 11:59 PM
why don’t people “do something” you might ask?
July 16, 2025 at 11:29 AM