Brain books

Talking with an old friend I got to blathering on about some of my favorite books of the last couple of years, with an emphasis on books that are about how we think the brain works and on non traditional learning. I wanted to list them all, and collect them so I could find them easily again, so here they are.

Kluge
The Second Brain
The Brain that Changes Itself
Predictably Irrational
Proust and the Squid, the Story and Science of the Reading Brain

Hackers and Painters
Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar
Talent is Overrated


If I could only recommend one book I think it would be Predictably Irrational. If I could add another I would recommend The Brain that Changes Itself.

December's Books

• A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick
• The Book of Qualities, by J. Ruth Gendler
• Kluge, by Gary Marcus

O.K. Not too many books in December, but they were good ones!

Math for readers ( and math geeks)

Math is fun. Learning arithmetic sometimes isn't. One way to make it more fun is to understand the point of math.

My oldest (12 at the moment) is using Math-U-See to learn and practice computation. Math-U-See is great for that. We also use Life of Fred for more of an over view of the subject, but it still doesn't help understand the real fun and beauty of mathematics. That's where these books can come in.

Here are a few books by Isaac Asimov about math that my then 11 year old enjoyed reading.

Realm of Numbers
Realm of Algebra
Asimov on Numbers

For more books and ideas to help discover math check out the reading lists at Living Math too.

Also, just recently recommended to me was the essay "Piece of Pi" in the book "Adding a Dimension", I'll try to remember to post about it when it comes in from the library.

Read any good math books recently?