Magazine for the mathematically curious, Chalkdust, has announced the winners of its annual Book of the Year competition. Each year, one book is chosen as the magazine’s editors’ favourite, and one book is chosen as the Readers’ Choice via a poll on the website. A few weeks ago the team released the shortlist for 2025’s best maths books, and The Mathematicians’ Library was among them, having been published in September 2025.
I am very pleased, not to mention flabbergasted, to announce that The Mathematicians’ Library won both categories: it was picked from the shortlist as the editors’ favourite, and received just shy of 50% of the Readers’ Choice votes with 236 out of 475 choosing it as their prime pick of 2025.
About The Mathematicians’ Library
- If you’ve read The Mathematicians’ Library and enjoyed it, please consider reviewing – or at least rating – it on your favourite bookseller’s website: it’s my first book and I have a very small audience as an author: every review helps!
- If you haven’t got your copy of The Mathematicians’ Library yet, order one via uk.Bookshop.org (buying via that link will result in me and an independent book shop receiving a small cut – I don’t get royalties from general sales), or any other bookshop (including Amazon, if you must).
- If you’d like a signed copy you can either buy one from wherever and then work out some sort of scheme for getting us in the same place (scroll down), or get in touch and see if I’ve got any in stock (for RRP + P&P).
- It’s available as a hardback and as an ebook in multiple languages (no paperback, I’m afraid, and I don’t think one is planned). It’s packed with full-colour images, so I’d recommend the hardback version over the two: the ebook just doesn’t look as good on a coffee table.
- Borrow it from your local library!
About Chalkdust
- Chalkdust Magazine’s 23rd is out now! It’s available to read for free online, or get hold of a physical copy by ordering one for an agreeable fee.
- Members of the team are often found giving out copies for free at maths events, so that’s an option too.
About the Book of the Year Shortlist:
As well as The Mathematicians’ Library, Chalkdust’s Book of the Year 2025 shortlist included:
- Proof: The Uncertain Science of Certainty by Adam Kucharski (uk.bookshop.org | Amazon)
- Unequal: The Maths of When Things Do (and Don’t) Add Up by Eugenia Cheng (uk.bookshop.org | Amazon)
- The Mathematics of Origami by Joseph O’Rourke (uk.bookshop.org | Amazon)
- Think Like a Mathematician by Junaid Mubeen (uk.bookshop.org | Amazon)
- Sum Stories: Equations and Their Origins by Robin Wilson (uk.bookshop.org | Amazon)
- A Little History of Mathematics by Snezana Lawrence (uk.bookshop.org | Amazon)
Buying via the links above will send a few pennies my way.
Ideas for Getting Us In The Same Place
- Seek out maths events. I’m bound to end up at one.
- Offer to buy me coffee. Or take me out for dinner. Or on holiday to Alaska.
- Hire me to do some work for you (such as giving a talk about my book).
Some of these will work better than others, and how well each one works might depend on whether I just happen to be in the right place or if you offer to pay my expenses, meet in an interesting location, or introduce me to Brian May.
- Please don’t just turn up at my place of work, because I work from home and that would be creepy.