MATHEMATICAL FICTION:

a list compiled by Alex Kasman (College of Charleston)

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An Abundance of Katherines (2006)
John Green
Highly Rated!

Contributed by Barry Cipra

Colin Singleton is a semi-burnt-out child prodigy who spends a summer coming of age as he develops a theorem to account for the fact that he's been dumped by nineteen girls, all named Katherine. Includes an appendix explaining functions and graphs, written by real-life mathematician Daniel Biss, a friend of the author. Biss mentions the work of psychologist John Gottman and mathematician James Murray on the mathematics of marriage.

This book appears to be popular with adults, although its apparent intended audience is high school students.

Contributed by Ionica

John Green is one of my favorite young adult writers and I really like the fact that he asked Daniel Biss (who was a Clay Research Fellow at the time) to write an appendix about the math.

Contributed by Anonymous

I love the book, but considering it a piece of mathematical fiction is an overstatement.

Contributed by Anonymous

Math is definitely there but I just found it to be annoying the entire time. It's just nonsense and, overall, sends the wrong message about what math is, to be honest.

More information about this work can be found at www.amazon.com.
(Note: This is just one work of mathematical fiction from the list. To see the entire list or to see more works of mathematical fiction, return to the Homepage.)

Works Similar to An Abundance of Katherines
According to my `secret formula', the following works of mathematical fiction are similar to this one:
  1. The Book of Getting Even by Benjamin Taylor
  2. Going Out by Scarlett Thomas
  3. Probabilities by Michael Stein
  4. What Are the Odds? by Justin Spitzer (writer) / Matthew Tritt (director)
  5. The Geometry of Sisters by Luanne Rice
  6. Do the Math: Secrets, Lies, and Algebra by Wendy Lichtman
  7. Panda Ray by Michael Kandel
  8. Hannah, Divided by Adele Griffin
  9. Nothing but the Truth (and a few white lies) by Justina Chen Headley
  10. Monster's Proof by Richard Lewis
Ratings for An Abundance of Katherines:
RatingsHave you seen/read this work of mathematical fiction? Then click here to enter your own votes on its mathematical content and literary quality or send me comments to post on this Webpage.
Mathematical Content:
3.09/5 (11 votes)
..
Literary Quality:
4.18/5 (11 votes)
..

Categories:
GenreYoung Adult,
MotifProving Theorems, Romance,
Topic
MediumNovels,

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Exciting News: The 1,600th entry was recently added to this database of mathematical fiction! Also, for those of you interested in non-fictional math books let me (shamelessly) plug the recent release of the second edition of my soliton theory textbook.

(Maintained by Alex Kasman, College of Charleston)