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
2030 On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres Nicolaus Copernicus 1543 Polish Latin
2031 Introduction To Mathematical Philosophy Bertrand Russell 1919 British English
2145 Cryptonomicon Neal Stephenson 1999 American English
2290 Arcadia Tom Stoppard 1993 British English
2364 One Two Three . . . Infinity George Gamow 1947 American English
2368 On Growth and Form D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson 1917 British English
2382 Notebooks Leonardo da Vinci 1883 Italian Italian
2418 A Mathematician's Apology G. H. Hardy 1940 British English
2487 Measuring the World Daniel Kehlmann 2005 German German
2710 Alan Turing Andrew Hodges 1983 British English
3204 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
3638 New Astronomy Johannes Kepler 1609 German Latin
3844 The Fractal Geometry Of Nature Benoît Mandelbrot 1977 French English
4150 The Devotion Of Suspect X Keigo Higashino 2005 Japanese Japanese
4580 A Theory Of The Consumption Function Milton Friedman 1957 American English
4863 The Foundations Of Arithmetic Gottlob Frege 1884 German German
5325 White Light Rudy Rucker 1980 American English
6457 Science and Civilisation in China Joseph Needham 1954 British English
6482 Coming of Age in the Milky Way Timothy Ferris 1988 American English
6506 Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture Apostolos Doxiadis 1992 Greek Greek
6728 The Mysterious Universe James Jeans 1930 British English
7045 Invention Norbert Wiener 1948 American English
7071 E=Mc2 David Bodanis 2000 British English
7764 In Search of Klingsor Jorge Volpi Escalante 1999 Mexican Spanish
7869 The Life Changing Magic Of Numbers Bobby Seagull 2019 British English
7980 The Man Who Loved Only Numbers Paul Hoffman 1998 American English
8508 From A Logical Point Of View Willard Van Orman Quine 1953 American English
8848 The Emperor's New Mind Roger Penrose 1989 British English
9328 Decoded Mai Jia 2002 Chinese Chinese
9562 Mathematics, Form And Function Saunders Mac Lane 1986 American English
9686 The Code Book Simon Singh 1999 British English
9696 The Information James Gleick 2011 American English
10114 The Taming of Chance Ian Hacking 1990 Canadian English
10303 Perspective As Symbolic Form Erwin Panofsky 1927 German German
10503 Shadows Of The Mind Roger Penrose 1994 British English
10541 The Character Of Physical Law Richard P. Feynman 1965 American English
12062 Prelude To Foundation Isaac Asimov 1988 American English
12076 Ninefox Gambit Yoon Ha Lee 2016 American English
13764 Anathem Neal Stephenson 2008 American English
14112 Geography Ptolemy 150 Greek Greek
14173 Autobiography Bertrand Russell 1967 British English
14232 Quicksilver Neal Stephenson 2003 American English
14323 How To Randall Munroe 2019 American English
14434 The World Of Mathematics James R. Newman 1956 American English
14519 Xkcd Randall Munroe 2010 American English
14649 How Not To Be Wrong Jordan Ellenberg 2014 American English
14719 Almagest Ptolemy 150 Greek Greek
14771 The Works of Archimedes Archimedes -287 Greek Ancient greek
14787 The Harmony of the Worlds Johannes Kepler 1619 German Latin
14818 Logic And Knowledge Bertrand Russell 1956 British English
14983 The Baroque Cycle Neal Stephenson 2003 American English
14983 Humble Pi Matt Parker 2019 British English
14983 Forward The Foundation Isaac Asimov 1993 American English
15605 The Outline Of Science J. Arthur Thomson 1922 British English
15897 An Introduction to Mathematics Alfred North Whitehead 1911 British English
15897 Science and Hypothesis Henri Poincaré 1902 French French
15897 Science and the Modern World Alfred North Whitehead 1925 British English
15897 Uncertainty Principle Werner Heisenberg 1927 German Unknown
15897 Theory of Games and Economic Behavior John Von Neumann 1944 American English
15897 Works of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1700 German Latin
15897 Epitome of Copernican Astronomy Johannes Kepler 1618 German Latin
15897 Commentariolus Nicolaus Copernicus 1514 Polish Latin
15897 The Origin And Development Of The Quantum Theory Max Planck 1922 German German
15897 The Geometry Rene Descartes 1637 French French
15897 The Computer And The Brain John Von Neumann 1958 American English
16513 The Chain Of Chance Stanislaw Lem 1976 Polish Polish
17117 Doctor Copernicus John Banville 1976 Irish English
17117 In The Light Of What We Know Zia Haider Rahman 2014 British English
17117 Proof David Auburn 2000 American English
17117 The Dreams Of Reason Heinz R. Pagels 1988 American English
17117 Hidden Figures Margot Lee Shetterly 2016 American English
17117 Math Doesn't Suck Danica McKellar 2007 American English
17117 Only The Longest Threads Tasneem Zehra Husain 2014 Pakistani English
17117 Martians Of Science Istvan Hargittai 2006 Unknown English
17117 The Philosophical Works Of Al Kindi Peter Adamson, Peter E. Pormann 2012 Unknown English
17117 Qed Richard P. Feynman 1985 American English
17117 A Beautiful Mind Sylvia Nasar 1998 American English
17117 The Cosmic Code Heinz R. Pagels 1982 American English
17117 Innumeracy John Allen Paulos 1988 American English
17117 Labyrinths Of Reason William Poundstone 1988 American English
17117 Zero Charles Seife 2000 American English
17117 Isaac Newton James Gleick 2003 American English
17117 The Joy Of X Steven H. Strogatz 2012 American English
17117 Why Machines Learn Anil Ananthaswamy 2024 Unknown English
17117 A Chair For My Mother Vera B. Williams 1982 American English
17117 Just A Minute Yuyi Morales 2003 Unknown English
17117 Ten, Nine, Eight Molly Bang 1983 American English
17117 Dyscalculia Camonghne Felix 2023 Unknown English
17117 The Man From The Future Ananyo Bhattacharya 2021 Unknown English
17117 The Genius Of Their Age S. Frederick Starr 2023 Unknown English
17117 Benjamin Banneker And Us Rachel Jamison Webster 2023 Unknown English
17117 The Last Equation Of Isaac Severy Nova Jacobs 2018 American English
17117 A Fórmula De Deus José M. Sánchez Santos Unknown Unknown
17117 Ratner's Star Don DeLillo 1976 American English
17117 Is Science Western In Origin? C.K. Raju Indian English