Books that I recommend on or around mathematics, with a particular focus on authors of colour and female authors.
If you know of a book that you think should be included on this list, please get in touch.
| Title | Author | Category | Date | Approx price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer | Padua, Sydney | Historical & general | 2016 | £9.35 |
| Mathematics for Human Flourishing | Su, Francis; Jackson, Christopher | Historical & general | 2020 | £11.34 |
| Enlightening symbols: a short history of mathematical notation and its hidden powers | Mazuer, Joseph | Historical & general | 2014 | £14.20 |
| The story of mathematics | Rooney, Anne | Historical & general | 2009 | £4.50 |
| The crest of the peacock: non-European roots of mathematics | Gheverghese Joseph, George | Historical & general | 2010 | £14.15 |
| Curves for the Mathematically Curious: An Anthology of the Unpredictable, Historical, Beautiful, and Romantic | Havill, Julian | Historical & general | 2021 | £11.85 |
| A century of measurement: an illustrated history | Magnello, Eileen | Historical & general | 2000 | £3.50 |
| The Art of More: how mathematics created civilisation | Brooks, Michael | Historical & general | 2021 | £13.67 |
| A compendium of mathematical methods | Morgan, Jo | Historical & general | 2019 | £13.66 |
| Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music and Cosmology | Lundy, Miranda et al | Historical & general | 2010 | £16.99 |
| Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics | Williams, Talithia | Historical & general: specifically about women | 2018 | £17.99 |
| Complexities: Women in Mathematics | Case, Bettye Anne; Leggett, Anne M | Historical & general: specifically about women | 2016 | £25.71 |
| Hypatia: Mathematician, Philosopher, Myth | Booth, Charlotte | Historical & general: specifically about women | 2016 | £18.84 |
| Emilie Du Chatelet: Daring Genius of the Enlightenment | Zinsser, Judith P. | Historical & general: specifically about women | 2007 | £5.99 |
| Notable Women in Mathematics: A Biographical Dictionary | Morrow, Charlene; Perl Teri | Historical & general: specifically about women | 1998 | £46.95 |
| Cracking the Digital Ceiling: Women in Computing around the World | Frieze, Carol; Quesenberry, Jeria L. | Historical & general: specifically about women | 2019 | £20.69 |
| X + Y A Mathematician's Manifesto For Rethinking Gender | Cheng, Eugenia | Historical & general: specifically about women | 2021 | £8.50 |
| Removing Barriers: Women in Academic Science,Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics | Bystydzienski, Jill; Bird, Sharon R. | Historical & general: specifically about women | 2006 | £24.99 |
| Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race | Shetterly, Margot Lee | Historical & general: specifically about race/intersectional | 2016 | £6.35 |
| Inventing the Mathematician: Gender, Race, and Our Cultural Understanding of Mathematics | Hottinger, Sara | Historical & general: specifically about race/intersectional | 2017 | £14.96 |
| Hidden Human Computers: The Black Women of NASA (Hidden Heroes) | Bradford Edwatds, Sue | Historical & general: specifically about race/intersectional | 2016 | £20.25 |
| Beyond Banneker: Black Mathematicians and the Paths to Excellence | Walker, Erica N. | Historical & general: specifically about race/intersectional | 2015 | £17.75 |
| Radical equations: Civil rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project | Moses, Robert P.; Cobb, Charles E. | Historical & general: specifically about race/intersectional | 2001 | £11.50 |
| How to Bake Pi: Easy recipes for understanding complex maths | Cheng, Eugenia | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2016 | £7.19 |
| The Indisputable Existence of Santa Claus | Fry, Hannah; Oleron Evan, Tomas | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2017 | £6.51 |
| Maths on the Back of an Envelope: Clever ways to (roughly) calculate anything | Eastaway, Rob | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2019 | £6.51 |
| Professor Povey's Perplexing Problems: Pre-University Physics and Maths Puzzles with Solutions | Povey, Thomas | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2015 | £15.99 |
| Math on Trial | Shneps, Leila; Colmez, Coralie | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2013 | £20.32 |
| Fat Chance | Reihl, Emily; Gross, Benedict, Harris, Joe | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2019 | £19.59 |
| Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea | Selfe, Charles | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2000 | £7.19 |
| A Mathematical Tapestry: demonstrating the beautiful unity of mathematics | Pedersen, Jean; Hilton, Peter | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2010 | £20.00 |
| Euclid's Window: The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace | Mlodinow, Leonard | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2003 | £7.25 |
| String, Straight-edge and Shadow: The Story of Geometry | Diggins, Julia E. | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2018 reprint | £9.99 |
| Clouds Are Not Spheres: A Portrait of Benoit Mandelbrot, The Founding Father of Fractal Geometry (Popular Science) | Lesmoir-Gordon, Nigel | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2018 | £30.51 |
| Closing the Gap: The Quest to Understand Prime Numbers | Neale, Vicky | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2017 | £16.89 |
| Supermath: The Power of Numbers for Good and Evil | Weltman, Anna | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2020 | £12.97 |
| At Sixes and Sevens: How to Understand Numbers and Make Maths Easy | Riley, Rachel | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2021 | £11.42 |
| Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors | Parker, Matt | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2020 | £8.19 |
| The Maths of Life and Death | Yates, Kit | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2019 | £13.28 |
| Beyond Infinity: An expedition to the outer limits of the mathematical universe | Cheng, Eugenia | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2018 | £8.00 |
| Maths tricks to blow your mind: A journey through viral maths | Evans, Kyle D. | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2021 | £6.72 |
| Infinite powers | Strogatz, Stephen | Mathematical adventures & recreational | 2019 | £9.01 |
| The Nature of Code: Simulating Natural Systems with Processing | Shiffman, Daniel | Data and computing | 2012 | £16.23 |
| Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine | Fry, Hannah | Data and computing | 2018 | £6.51 |
| Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy | O'Neil, Cathy | Data and computing | 2017 | £6.51 |
| Doing Data Science: Straight Talk from the Frontline | O'Neil, Cathy; Schutt, Rachel | Data and computing | 2013 | £27.48 |
| Outnumbered | Sumpter, David | Data and computing | 2018 | £12.99 |
| Big Data: Does Size Matter? | Harkness, Timandra | Data and computing | 2017 | £7.91 |
| Mathematical Reasoning with Diagrams: From Intuition to Automation | Jamnik, Mateja | Data and computing | 2001 | £15.00 |
| Invisible women: exposing data bias in a world designed by men | Criado Perez, Caroline | Data and computing | 2019 | £7.59 |
| Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History | Gamwell, Lynn | Visual and creative maths | 2017 | £27.50 |
| Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension | Parker, Matt | Visual and creative maths | 2015 | £7.19 |
| 100% PROOF! The Why Of Maths: Visual and algebraic explanations of formulas needed for GCSE and A level Mathematics | Hope, Jane | Visual and creative maths | 2016 | £19.85 |
| Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension | Parker, Matt | Visual and creative maths | 2015 | £9.34 |
| This is not a maths book: a smart art activity book | Weltman, Anna | Visual and creative maths | 2015 | £7.99 |
| Beautiful Symmetry: A Coloring Book about Math | Berke, Alex; Bellos, Alex | Visual and creative maths | 2020 | £15.99 |
| Music by the Numbers: From Pythagoras to Schoenberg | Maor, Eli | Visual and creative maths | 2018 | £13.76 |
| Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life | Czerski, Helen | Physics | 2017 | £8.19 |
| String Theory and M-Theory: A Modern Introduction | Becker, Katrin; Becker, Melanie; Schwartz, John | Physics | 2006 | £69.54 |
| Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray | Hossenfelder, Sabine | Physics | 2020 | £11.20 |
| Pythagoras' Trousers: God, Physics and the Gender Wars | Wertheim, Margaret | Physics | 1997 | £9.80 |
| The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Maths Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets | Farmelo, Graham | Physics | 2019 | £7.91 |
| How to Think Like a Mathematician: A Companion to Undergraduate Mathematics | Houston, Kevin | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2009 | £19.50 |
| How to Study for a Mathematics Degree | Alcock, Lara | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2012 | £13.35 |
| Mathematics Rebooted: A Fresh Approach to Understanding | Alcock, Lara | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2017 | £17.72 |
| Bayesian Statistics for Beginners: a step-by-step approach | Donovan, Therese; Mickey, Ruth | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2019 | £33.32 |
| Statistical Inference as Severe Testing | Mayo, Deborah G | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2018 | £19.79 |
| Symmetry In Mechanics: A Gentle Modern Introduction | Singer,Stephanie Frank | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2013 | £32.99 |
| Advanced Problems in Mathematics: Preparing for University (OBP Series in Mathematics) | Siklos, Stephen | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2019 | £19.90 |
| Abstract Algebra with Applications | Terras, Audrey | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2018 | £39.47 |
| Discrete Mathematics with Ducks | belcastro, sarah marie | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2018 | $42.99 |
| Principles of Applied Statistics | Donnelly, Christl | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2011 | £24.50 |
| Faces of Geometry. From Agnesi to Mirzakhani (Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems) | Magnaghi-Delfino, Paola; Mele, Giampiero; Norando, Tullia | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2019 | £89.99 |
| Category Theory in Context | Reihl, Emily | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2016 | £18.99 |
| Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra) | Oakley, Barbara | Study companions and accessible textbooks | 2014 | £10.17 |
| Math Girls (5 volumes) | Yuki, Hiroshi | Mathematical stories/narratives | 2010 | £9.99 |
| The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure | Enzenburger, Hans Magnus | Mathematical stories/narratives | 2008 | £8.20 |
| The Man Who Counted: A Collection of Mathematical Adventures | Tahan, Malba | Mathematical stories/narratives | 2015 | £11.60 |