This is a list of little books about mathematics. You might enjoy looking at one or more over a holiday – or any time. The criterion is that the material be accessible to an interested reader from 1st year (Freshman) up and short enough to make reading the whole thing a reasonable project.

But reading mathematics is not like reading a novel. Sometimes the best way, is to read a few pages then stop to think for a few days then read them again and a little more. Or you can read one chapter and never look at the remainder.

These are all books that I have enjoyed; I hope you like them too.

Three Pearls of Number Theory, A.IA. Khinchin, Rochester NY Graylock 1952, Dover 1998 [QA241.K53] 64 pages

Shortest Paths: variational problems, L.A. Liusternik, Oxford Pergammon Press 1964 [QA315.L58] 102 pages

Elements of the Theory of Functions, Konrad Knopp, New York, Dover Publications, 1952 [QA331.K6814] 140 pages

A Primer of Real Function Theory, Ralph Philip Boas and Harold P. Boas, MAA Textbooks

The Thread: A Mathematical Yarn, Philip J. Davis, 1989

First Concepts of Topology, W.G. Chin & N.E. Steenrod, New York Random House [QA 611.C48 1966] 155 pages.

Geometry Revisited, H.S.M. Coxeter and S.L. Greitzer, Math. Assoc. Amer. 1967 [QA453.C6] 193 pages

Numbers: Rational and Irrational, I. Niven, New York Random House 1961 [QA241.N58] 136 pages

Stories about Maxima and Minima, V.M. Tikhomirov, Amer. Math. Soc. 1990 [QA306.T55 1990]  188 pages