The Greatest Books of All Time on Mathematics

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This list represents a comprehensive and trusted collection of the greatest books. Developed through a specialized algorithm, it brings together 759 'best of' book lists to form a definitive guide to the world's most acclaimed books. For those interested in how these books are chosen, additional details can be found on the rankings page.

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Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
321 We Yevgeny Zamyatin 1924 Russian Russian
1018 Principia Mathematica Isaac Newton 1687 British Latin
1387 Gödel, Escher, Bach Douglas Hofstadter 1979 American English
1463 Camera Obscura Nicolaas Beets 1839 Dutch Dutch
1474 Chaos James Gleick 1987 American English
1476 Flatland Edwin A. Abbott 1884 British English
1706 The Principia Mathematica Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell 1910 British English
1812 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon 2003 British English
1843 Euclid's Elements Euclid -300 Greek Ancient greek
2031 On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres Nicolaus Copernicus 1543 Polish Latin
2032 Introduction To Mathematical Philosophy Bertrand Russell 1919 British English
2146 Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson 1999 American English
2291 Arcadia Tom Stoppard 1993 British English
2366 One Two Three . . . Infinity George Gamow 1947 American English
2370 On Growth and Form D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson 1917 British English
2384 Notebooks Leonardo da Vinci 1883 Italian Italian
2420 A Mathematician's Apology G. H. Hardy 1940 British English
2489 Measuring the World Daniel Kehlmann 2005 German German
2711 Alan Turing Andrew Hodges 1983 British English
3205 When We Cease To Understand The World Adrian Nathan West, Benjamin Labatut 2020 Chilean Spanish
3417 The Housekeeper And The Professor Yōko Ogawa 2003 Japanese Japanese
3637 New Astronomy Johannes Kepler 1609 German Latin
3842 The Fractal Geometry Of Nature Benoît Mandelbrot 1977 French English
4150 The Devotion Of Suspect X Keigo Higashino 2005 Japanese Japanese
4581 A Theory Of The Consumption Function Milton Friedman 1957 American English
4864 The Foundations Of Arithmetic Gottlob Frege 1884 German German
5327 White Light Rudy Rucker 1980 American English
6459 Science and Civilisation in China Joseph Needham 1954 British English
6484 Coming of Age in the Milky Way Timothy Ferris 1988 American English
6508 Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture Apostolos Doxiadis 1992 Greek Greek
6729 The Mysterious Universe James Jeans 1930 British English
7045 Invention Norbert Wiener 1948 American English
7071 E=Mc2 David Bodanis 2000 British English
7766 In Search of Klingsor Jorge Volpi Escalante 1999 Mexican Spanish
7870 The Life Changing Magic Of Numbers Bobby Seagull 2019 British English
7981 The Man Who Loved Only Numbers Paul Hoffman 1998 American English
8512 From A Logical Point Of View Willard Van Orman Quine 1953 American English
8852 The Emperor's New Mind Roger Penrose 1989 British English
9333 Decoded Mai Jia 2002 Chinese Chinese
9567 Mathematics, Form And Function Saunders Mac Lane 1986 American English
9689 The Code Book Simon Singh 1999 British English
9699 The Information James Gleick 2011 American English
10119 The Taming of Chance Ian Hacking 1990 Canadian English
10308 Perspective As Symbolic Form Erwin Panofsky 1927 German German
10508 Shadows Of The Mind Roger Penrose 1994 British English
10547 The Character Of Physical Law Richard P. Feynman 1965 American English
12063 Prelude To Foundation Isaac Asimov 1988 American English
12077 Ninefox Gambit Yoon Ha Lee 2016 American English
13765 Anathem Neal Stephenson 2008 American English
14112 Geography Ptolemy 150 Greek Greek
14174 Autobiography Bertrand Russell 1967 British English
14232 Quicksilver Neal Stephenson 2003 American English
14324 How To Randall Munroe 2019 American English
14435 The World Of Mathematics James R. Newman 1956 American English
14520 Xkcd Randall Munroe 2010 American English
14650 How Not To Be Wrong Jordan Ellenberg 2014 American English
14720 Almagest Ptolemy 150 Greek Greek
14773 The Works of Archimedes Archimedes -287 Greek Ancient greek
14788 The Harmony of the Worlds Johannes Kepler 1619 German Latin
14820 Logic And Knowledge Bertrand Russell 1956 British English
14985 The Baroque Cycle Neal Stephenson 2003 American English
14985 Humble Pi Matt Parker 2019 British English
14985 Forward The Foundation Isaac Asimov 1993 American English
15613 The Outline Of Science J. Arthur Thomson 1922 British English
15915 An Introduction to Mathematics Alfred North Whitehead 1911 British English
15915 Science and Hypothesis Henri Poincaré 1902 French French
15915 Science and the Modern World Alfred North Whitehead 1925 British English
15915 Uncertainty Principle Werner Heisenberg 1927 German Unknown
15915 Theory of Games and Economic Behavior John Von Neumann 1944 American English
15915 Works of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1700 German Latin
15915 Epitome of Copernican Astronomy Johannes Kepler 1618 German Latin
15915 Commentariolus Nicolaus Copernicus 1514 Polish Latin
15915 The Origin And Development Of The Quantum Theory Max Planck 1922 German German
15915 The Geometry Rene Descartes 1637 French French
15915 The Computer And The Brain John Von Neumann 1958 American English
15904 The Chain Of Chance Stanislaw Lem 1976 Polish Polish
17158 Doctor Copernicus John Banville 1976 Irish English
17158 In The Light Of What We Know Zia Haider Rahman 2014 British English
17158 Proof David Auburn 2000 American English
17158 The Dreams Of Reason Heinz R. Pagels 1988 American English
17158 Hidden Figures Margot Lee Shetterly 2016 American English
17158 Math Doesn't Suck Danica McKellar 2007 American English
17158 Only The Longest Threads Tasneem Zehra Husain 2014 Pakistani English
17158 Martians Of Science Istvan Hargittai 2006 Unknown English
17158 The Philosophical Works Of Al Kindi Peter Adamson, Peter E. Pormann 2012 Unknown English
17158 Qed Richard P. Feynman 1985 American English
17158 A Beautiful Mind Sylvia Nasar 1998 American English
17158 The Cosmic Code Heinz R. Pagels 1982 American English
17158 Innumeracy John Allen Paulos 1988 American English
17158 Labyrinths Of Reason William Poundstone 1988 American English
17158 Zero Charles Seife 2000 American English
17158 Isaac Newton James Gleick 2003 American English
17158 The Joy Of X Steven H. Strogatz 2012 American English
17158 Why Machines Learn Anil Ananthaswamy 2024 Unknown English
17158 A Chair For My Mother Vera B. Williams 1982 American English
17158 Just A Minute Yuyi Morales 2003 Unknown English
17158 Ten, Nine, Eight Molly Bang 1983 American English
17158 Dyscalculia Camonghne Felix 2023 Unknown English
17158 The Man From The Future Ananyo Bhattacharya 2021 Unknown English
17158 The Genius Of Their Age S. Frederick Starr 2023 Unknown English
17158 Benjamin Banneker And Us Rachel Jamison Webster 2023 Unknown English
17158 The Last Equation Of Isaac Severy Nova Jacobs 2018 American English
17158 A Fórmula De Deus José M. Sánchez Santos Unknown Unknown
17158 Ratner's Star Don DeLillo 1976 American English
17158 Is Science Western In Origin? C.K. Raju Indian English