Great books about mathematics

For the less technical user who enjoys math, I can recommend these books:

* The music of the primes - Very nice reading. Of course revolves around Primes but gets from Euclides to RSA and EC cryptography without being technical.

* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Also math related reading story.

* the Cryptonomicon - the ultimate hacker novel IMHO. Lots of math there also, explained very nicely. I will never forget the masturbation vs concentration graph :-)

> I’ve been asked over and over for good books about mathematics for a layperson, someone who hasn’t taken advanced courses in university and is more simply interested in learning about what math is, and some of the more interesting historical figures and results from mathematics.

The book you want is "What is Mathematics?" [0] by Courant and Robbins.

[0] http://books.google.no/books?id=_kYBqLc5QoQC&printsec=frontc...

I really enjoyed the book on Fermat's last theorem by Simon Singh -

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802713319

A long time ago, a friend's mother was complaining to me that (high school) Math is a dry subject and she doesn't blame her otherwise intelligent son for not being able get interested and do well in it. I wish I knew of this book then - I know it cranked up my interest in Math ever since.

I'll second that with caveats. "The Elements" requires quite a bit of commentary to make sense and most editions seem to aspire more to translational accuracy than mathematical understanding. But if you can get past that it is the singular "must read" book in mathematics.

Yes and it's conveniently available on Safari [0] if the sticker shock of the print edition is too much. Also, the editor Tim Gowers wrote Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction [1].

0: http://my.safaribooksonline.com/book/math/9781400830398

1: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000SEP2T2/