As promised, when we first started the Book Club on Goodreads, here is a short review on the January book: "How to Bake Pi, Easy Recipes for Understanding Complex Maths" by Eugenia Cheng. This work perfectly with this month's topic: women in mathematics. Eugenia Cheng is an English mathematician, pianist, Scientist-in-Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an honorary fellow of pure mathematics at the University of Sheffield.

The book has a straight forward and goodgeneral description: InHow to Bake Pi, math professor Eugenia Cheng provides an accessible introduction to the logic and beauty of mathematics, powered, unexpectedly, by insights from the kitchen: we learn, for example, how the béchamel in a lasagna can be a lot like the number 5, and why making a good custard proves that math is easy but life is hard. Of course, it's not all cooking; we'll also run the New York and Chicago marathons, pay visits to Cinderella and Lewis Carroll, and even get to the bottom of a tomato's identity as a vegetable. This is not the math of our high school classes: mathematics, Cheng shows us, is less about numbers and formulas and more about how we know, believe, and understand anything, including whether our brother took too much cake.

From a mathematical point, I don't want to discuss this book to much because I feel like I will give to many spoilers. It is a book about mathematical concepts, so I cannot say to much. On the other hand, this is very easy to read and I recommend it to anyone (minimum level of mathematics required to understand the concepts). Some of the chapters (especially the first ones) are great for children/pupils as well. The author has a wonderful way of finding different real world analogies for different mathematical concepts. On the other hand, for anyone that is expecting high level of mathematics from the beginning, this is not the book for you. It goes through the concepts from basic to high level in a slow, methodical rhythm. On the other hand, if you are already studying mathematics on a higher level, the second part of the book offers good information on an important field: category theory.

In addition, the book is full of recipes. Every chapter starts with one and the description of the mathematical concepts goes together with it. I found this a very interesting concepts. The author considers that " Maths, like recipes, has both ingredients and method. And just as a recipe would be a bit useless if it omitted the method, we can't understand what maths is unless we talk about the way it is done, not just the things it studies". Therefor, she uses all these cooking analogies to inspire and remove misconceptions related to the abstraction element of mathematics. Thus, she is making it more appealing to a wider audience. I am still excited to try out some of her recipes (especially the ones that do not require application of heat).

For this book, I tried recording my opinions on the way. It didn't work for most of it, but I thought I will just share what I have with you. If you want to see more about it, you could check LThMath Book Club.

baking pi

Before I end this short review I wanted to share with you my review on Goodreads. I wrote it exactly after I have finished the last page in the book and I think it nicely encapsulates my emotions and excitement:

It was a refreshing read. At first I got stuck in all the recipes (that is because I am not really a foodie), but when I got to the second part of the book (the category theory part) everything started to be even more interesting.

This is really a book that can be enjoyed by absolutely everyone, you don't need to know any high level mathematics for it. The author has a wonderful way of explaining concepts, giving examples from everyday life (especially cooking) that help to understand some abstract aspects of mathematics. Moreover, I really enjoyed the parts where she has talked about her experience as a mathematician – her struggles and achievements.

I would recommend this book to absolutely everyone. (Secretly, I am considering sharing some pages and paragraphs with my pupils at school). Enjoy!