Apart from the “Rough Guide to China” (13 days and counting) I have a few books cooking at the moment that I can warmly recommend to everyone. The first is The theory that would not die by Sharon Bertsch Mcgrayne, it’s a fascinating read about the history of Bayes’ Theorem (which wasn’t really by Bayes), and how it was applied to everything from finding U-boats during WWII to establishing a link between smoking and cancer.
The second one is Proofiness by Charles Seife, and it is an important account of how we are being fooled by numbers on a daily basis, and how bogus mathematical arguments shape our political discussions and the media. Highly recommended !
Feel free to leave your own book recommendations in the comments.
