Hi; I\'d like to thank everyone who replied directly or via the list to my request for book reccomendations for a \'non-technical\' Maths/stats christmas read. Here are a summary of all the recommendations (I don\'t think I\'ve missed any - if so apologies); in places I\'ve reduced the comments a little - I hope their \'recommendors\' won\'t mind. The books appear to vary a bit in their maths/stats orientation, and in their technical content. The only one to recieve multiple recommendations was \"The History of Statistics\". I\'m just about to brave the festive rush to see which of these my local bookshop has! I hope that you and your\'s have a very happy holiday Graham Statistics on the table (1999); Stigler, Harvard UP. Historical essays about lead characters and ideas in statistics Sophie�s World; Jostein Gaarder Introduction to philosophy in form of Novel A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper; John Allen Paulos The Fourth Dimensions and How to Get There; Rudy Rucker Consciousness Explained; Daniel Dennett (Philosophy of Mind) The Trouble with Science; Robin Dunbar (Philosophy of Science) The Meme Machine; Susan Blackmore. The History of Statistics; Stephen Stigler Against the Gods, the Remarkable Story of Risk. �A little too much of the authors interest in economics but otherwise a very interesting read.� Comprehending Behavioral Statistics; Russell Hurlburt. Fermat\'s Enigma �a wonderful read...........� The Lucifer Principle. Full House; Stephen Jay Gould. �� the importance of understanding the variance (in addition to measures of central tendency). This is applied to models of evolution, but illustrated in many other wonderfully interesting ways, too (e.g.,cancer survival, baseball, etc.). � The Calendar; David Ewing Duncan. subtitled �The 5000 year struggle to align the clock and the heavens...\" By James Gleick\'s Chaos: Making a New Science (1988) Genius (a bio of Richard Feynman) (1993) Faster: The Accelaration of Just About Everything A Beautiful Mind; Sylvia Nasar. �The often deeply touching and captivating story of mathematician and economic theorist John Nash Jr.; his genius and lifelong struggle with madness.� What is Random; Edward Beltrami; Copernicus
