@TeaKayB Well, my five cents to this thread:
1) "A Beautiful Mind" by Sylvia Nasar: An excellent biography of John Nash, the mathematician who won the Nobel Prize in Economics and spent his life battling schizophrenia. The book is full of fascinating behind-the-scenes stories from the world of mathematics and inspired a film of the same name (though the book is much better, as the film takes too many liberties).
2) "The Man Who Loved Only Numbers" by Paul Hoffman: A biography of Paul Erdős, the mathematician who lived solely and exclusively for mathematics. It's worth reading not only for his interesting personality but also for the behind-the-scenes stories from the world of mathematics.
3) "The Man Who Counted" by Malba Tahan: Set in a world deeply influenced by Islamic culture to the point of evoking One Thousand and One Nights, this book tells the adventures of a man with exceptional numerical skills and is filled with intriguing puzzles and apparent mathematical paradoxes.
4) "O Romance das Equações Algébricas" by Gilberto G. Garbi: This book narrates the saga of the discovery/invention of complex numbers, packed with funny anecdotes about the key figures involved. While it doesn't aim to be an academic book it is quite accurate both in the detailed mathematics it presents and in its historical aspects, as far as I know. Unfortunately, it can only be found in Portuguese; it has never been translated into other languages.
5) "Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture" by Apostolos Doxiadis: A delightful novel about a fictional genius (the uncle of the narrator) and his relationship with Goldbach's Conjecture. The sense of humor is excellent.
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Please recommend #books about #maths that *aren't* about teaching it.