Once in a while you encounter a novel way some one describes a book. It makes a deep impression. Here is how Scott Aaronson goes about describing a Math book: Princeton Companion to Mathematics
a 1000-page volume that’s sort of an encyclopedia of math, history of math, biographical dictionary of math, beginners’ guide to math, experts’ desk reference of math, philosophical treatise on math, cultural account of math, and defense of math rolled into one, written by about 130 topic specialists and edited by the Fields medalist, blogger, and master expositor Timothy Gowers….
If you love Math, how can you resist such a description? I like this part:
Picture a stack of yellow books (
), and imagine cornering the authors one by one and demanding they tell you what’s really going on, and the result might look something like this.
More than the novel yellow stack depiction, the concept of cornering the authors and demand that they tell you what is going on really appeals to me. I can visualize groups of inquisitive students doing the same thing to teachers along the hallways in schools.
Language is a beautiful thing and once in a while you luck upon a blog post or author with that gift that lifts your spirits.