MobileRead July 2016 Book Club Nominations

[WT Sharpe]

Help us select the book that the MobileRead Book Club will read for July, 2016.

The nominations will run through midnight EST June 26 or until 10 books have made the list. The poll will then be posted and will remain open for five days.

The book selection category for July is a Free-For-All!

In order for a book to be included in the poll it needs THREE NOMINATIONS (original nomination, a second and a third).

How Does This Work?
The Mobile Read Book Club (MRBC) is an informal club that requires nothing of you. Each month a book is selected by polling. On the last week of that month a discussion thread is started for the book. If you want to participate feel free. There is no need to "join" or sign up. All are welcome.

How Does a Book Get Selected?
Each book that is nominated will be listed in a poll at the end of the nomination period. The book that polls the most votes will be the official selection.

How Many Nominations Can I Make?
Each participant has 3 nominations. You can nominate a new book for consideration or nominate (second, third) one that has already been nominated by another person.

How Do I Nominate a Book?
Please just post a message with your nomination. If you are the FIRST to nominate a book, please try to provide an abstract to the book so others may consider their level of interest.

How Do I Know What Has Been Nominated?
Just follow the thread. This message will be updated with the status of the nominations as often as I can. If one is missed, please just post a message with a multi-quote of the 3 nominations and it will be added to the list ASAP.

When is the Poll?
The poll thread will open at the end of the nomination period, or once there have been 10 books with 3 nominations each. At that time a link to the initial poll thread will be posted here and this thread will be closed.

The floor is open to nominations. Please comment if you discover a nomination is not available as an ebook in your area.


Official choices with three nominations each:

(1) Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Goodreads | Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo US / Overdrive
Print Length: 610 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.

(2) City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple
Goodreads | Amazon UK
Print Length: 352 pages

Spoiler:

‘Could you show me a djinn?’ I asked. ‘Certainly,’ replied the Sufi. ‘But you would run away.’

From the author of the Samuel Johnson Prize-shortlisted ‘The Return of a King’, this is William Dalrymple’s captivating memoir of a year spent in Delhi, a city watched over and protected by the mischievous invisible djinns. Lodging with the beady-eyed Mrs Puri and encountering an extraordinary array of characters – from elusive eunuchs to the last remnants of the Raj – William Dalrymple comes to know the bewildering city intimately.

He pursues Delhi’s interlacing layers of history along narrow alleys and broad boulevards, brilliantly conveying its intoxicating mix of mysticism and mayhem.

‘City of Djinns’ is an astonishing and sensitive portrait of a city, and confirms William Dalrymple as one of the most compelling explorers of India’s past and present.

(3) The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker
Goodreads | Amazon UK / Amazon US
Print Length: 657 pages

Spoiler:

New York, 1899. Two strangers, one destiny.

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. [She] arrives in New York in 1899.

Ahmad is a djinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.

The Golem & The Djinni is their magical, unforgettable story; unlikely friends whose tenuous attachment challenges their opposing natures.

(4) Nothing But Blue Skies by Tom Holt
Goodreads | Amazon US / Kobo US / Overdrive
Print Length: 336 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

There are very many reasons why British summers are either non-existent or, alternatively, held on a Thursday. Many of these reasons are either scientific, dull, or both - but all of them are wrong, especially the scientific ones. The real reason why it rains perpetually from January 1st to December 31st (incl.) is, of course, irritable Chinese Water Dragons. Karen is one such legendary creature. Ancient, noble, near-indestructible and, for a number of wildly improbable reasons, working as an estate-agent, Karen is irritable quite a lot of the time. Hence Wimbledon. But now things have changed and Karen's no longer irritable. She's FURIOUS.

(5) Something Fresh (original title: Something New) by P.G. Wodehouse
Goodreads | Amazon US / Audible / Many Books / Whispersync
Print Length: 284 pages

Spoiler:

This is the first Blandings novel, In which P.G. Wodehouse intorduces us to the delightfully dotty Lord Emsworth, his bone-headed younger son, the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, his log-suffering secretary, the Efficient Baxter, and Beach the Blandings butler.

As Wodehouse wrote, 'without at least one imposter on the premises, Blandings Castle is never itself'. In Something Fresh there are two, each with an eye on a valuable Egytian amulet which Lord Emsworth has acquired without quite realizing how it came into his pocket. But of course things get a lot more complicated than this...

(6) Death in the Dordogne (Bruno Chief of Police Book 1) by Martin Walker
Goodreads | Amazon UK
Print Length: 262 pages

Spoiler:

It's market day in St Denis, a small town in the Périgord region of South West France. The locals are on the alert because inspectors are expected to make a 'surprise visit' in an attempt to enforce the unpopular and bureaucratic EU hygiene rules. But for Captain Bruno Courrèges, St Denis' Chief of Police, this particular market day turns into something far more serious.

An old man, head of a local immigrant North African family, is found viciously murdered. Suspicion falls on the son of the local doctor, but Bruno isn't so certain. He believes it to be an act of vengeance, with its motive hidden deep in France's divisive war-time past. As rumour and mistrust grow, Bruno must look beneath the surface of this normally calm community to find a brutal killer.

The nominations are now closed.

[WT Sharpe]

Wondering if a particular book is available in your country? The following spoiler contains a list of bookstores outside the United States you can search. If you don't see a bookstore on this list for your country, find one that is, send me the link via PM, and I'll add it to the list. Also, if you find one on the list that is no longer in operation, let me know and I'll remove it from the list.

Spoiler:

Australian
Angus Robertson
Booktopia
Borders
Dymocks
Fishpond
Google

Canada
Amazon. Make sure you are logged out. Then go to the Kindle Store. Search for a book. After the search results come up, in the upper right corner of the screen, change the country to Canada and search away.
Google
Sony eBookstore (Upper right corner switch to/from US/CA)

UK
BooksOnBoard (In the upper right corner is a way to switch to the UK store)
Amazon
Foyle's
Google
Penguin
Random House
Waterstones
WH Smith

* Pitching in a Pinch by Christy Mathewson [GA Russell]
Goodreads | Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo US
Print Length: 320 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

Christy Mathewson (1880–1925) was the greatest baseball pitcher of his day, a hero with appeal reaching beyond sports. A college-educated player from Pennsylvania farm country, he restored respectability to a game tarnished by the rowdies who had dominated baseball in the 1890s.Pitching in a Pinch, originally published in 1912, is an insider’s account blending anecdote, biography, instruction, and social history. It celebrates baseball as it was played in the first decade of the twentieth century by famous contemporaries like Honus Wagner and Rube Marquand, managers like John McGraw and Connie Mack, and many others. Always sensitive to psychology as well as technique, Mathewson describes the “dangerous batters” he faced, the “peculiarities” of big-league pitchers, the “good and bad” of coaching, umpiring, sign-stealing, base-running, spring training, and the importance of superstition to athletes. Matty, as he was called, makes the reader feel that tense moment when a player in a pinch must use his head.

* The Invisible Man by HG Wells [GA Russell]
Goodreads | Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo US
Print Length: 192 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

This masterpiece of science fiction is the fascinating story of Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible, and his descent into madness that follows.

** The Case of the Sulky Girl by Erle Stanley Gardner [GA Russell, Grey Ram]
Goodreads | Amazon US
Print Length: 230 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

Unable to marry due to a stipulation in her late father's will--which states that she will lose his millions if she does wed--headstrong Frances hires Perry Mason to get around the clause, and soon he ends up solving a family murder.

*** City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple [din155, issybird, Dazrin]
Goodreads | Amazon UK
Print Length: 352 pages

Spoiler:

‘Could you show me a djinn?’ I asked. ‘Certainly,’ replied the Sufi. ‘But you would run away.’

From the author of the Samuel Johnson Prize-shortlisted ‘The Return of a King’, this is William Dalrymple’s captivating memoir of a year spent in Delhi, a city watched over and protected by the mischievous invisible djinns. Lodging with the beady-eyed Mrs Puri and encountering an extraordinary array of characters – from elusive eunuchs to the last remnants of the Raj – William Dalrymple comes to know the bewildering city intimately.

He pursues Delhi’s interlacing layers of history along narrow alleys and broad boulevards, brilliantly conveying its intoxicating mix of mysticism and mayhem.

‘City of Djinns’ is an astonishing and sensitive portrait of a city, and confirms William Dalrymple as one of the most compelling explorers of India’s past and present.

*** Death in the Dordogne (Bruno Chief of Police Book 1) by Martin Walker [din155, CRussel, Strether]
Goodreads | Amazon UK
Print Length: 262 pages

Spoiler:

It's market day in St Denis, a small town in the Périgord region of South West France. The locals are on the alert because inspectors are expected to make a 'surprise visit' in an attempt to enforce the unpopular and bureaucratic EU hygiene rules. But for Captain Bruno Courrèges, St Denis' Chief of Police, this particular market day turns into something far more serious.

An old man, head of a local immigrant North African family, is found viciously murdered. Suspicion falls on the son of the local doctor, but Bruno isn't so certain. He believes it to be an act of vengeance, with its motive hidden deep in France's divisive war-time past. As rumour and mistrust grow, Bruno must look beneath the surface of this normally calm community to find a brutal killer.

*** Nothing But Blue Skies by Tom Holt [issybird, CRussel, WT Sharpe]
Goodreads | Amazon US / Kobo US / Overdrive
Print Length: 336 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

There are very many reasons why British summers are either non-existent or, alternatively, held on a Thursday. Many of these reasons are either scientific, dull, or both - but all of them are wrong, especially the scientific ones. The real reason why it rains perpetually from January 1st to December 31st (incl.) is, of course, irritable Chinese Water Dragons. Karen is one such legendary creature. Ancient, noble, near-indestructible and, for a number of wildly improbable reasons, working as an estate-agent, Karen is irritable quite a lot of the time. Hence Wimbledon. But now things have changed and Karen's no longer irritable. She's FURIOUS.

*** Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison [WT Sharpe, CRussel, drofgnal]
Goodreads | Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Kobo US / Overdrive
Print Length: 610 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.

*** The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker [pdurrant, Dazrin, treadlightly]
Goodreads | Amazon UK / Amazon US
Print Length: 657 pages

Spoiler:

New York, 1899. Two strangers, one destiny.

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. [She] arrives in New York in 1899.

Ahmad is a djinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.

The Golem & The Djinni is their magical, unforgettable story; unlikely friends whose tenuous attachment challenges their opposing natures.

* Jinn from Hyperspace: And Other Scribblings--Both Serious and Whimsical by Martin Gardner [WT Sharpe]
Goodreads | Amazon Ca / Amazon UK / Amazon US
Print Length: 307 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

For over fifty years Martin Gardner has been delighting readers with elegant, witty, and highly intelligent writing on an amazing array of topics. Best known for his works on popular science and mathematics, and as an incisive skeptical commentator on the paranormal, Gardner is also an accomplished writer of children's literature, a novelist, and a prolific essayist on religion, philosophy, and other issues.

This new collection of Gardner gems takes its name from an essay on a mathematical theme, about a jinn (or genie) trapped in a "Klein Bottle"—an amusing tale that also teaches the math phobic something interesting about a theoretical one-sided object with no distinction between inside and outside. Other topics in math and physics include speculations about universes where time runs in reverse; the Banach-Tarski paradox (whereby a sphere, after being deconstructed, can be reassembled at twice its size); and a vigorous defense of the objective reality of mathematical theorems independent of human culture.

On the literary side, Gardner discusses two neglected works by G.K. Chesterton, one of which concerns an imaginary but now very topical war between Islam and Christianity. He also considers the fantasies of L. Frank Baum that don’t take place in Oz, Clement Moore’s ever-popular The Night Before Christmas, and the many fascinating books by Lewis Carroll that are sometimes overshadowed by his famous Alice in Wonderland.

A treat for longtime Gardner readers or the perfect introduction for newcomers, The Jinn from Hyperspace offers a rich selection of stimulating intellectual wonders.

** The Maze Runner by James Dashner [Grey Ram, Dazrin]
Goodreads | Amazon US / Kobo US
Print Length: 384 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human.

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone.

Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade.

Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive.

Everything is going to change.

Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.

Remember. Survive. Run.

* The Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk [Grey Ram]
Goodreads | Amazon US / Kobo US
Print Length: 218 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

Every weekend, in basements and parking lots across the country, young men with good white-collar jobs and absent fathers take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded for as long as they have to. Then they go back to those jobs with blackened eyes and loosened teeth and the sense that they can handle anything. Fight Club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter and dark, anarchic genius. And it's only the beginning of his plans for revenge on a world where cancer support groups have the corner on human warmth.

*** Something Fresh (original title: Something New) by P.G. Wodehouse [issybird, din155, pdurrant]
Goodreads | Amazon US / Audible / Many Books / Whispersync
Print Length: 284 pages

Spoiler:

This is the first Blandings novel, In which P.G. Wodehouse intorduces us to the delightfully dotty Lord Emsworth, his bone-headed younger son, the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, his log-suffering secretary, the Efficient Baxter, and Beach the Blandings butler.

As Wodehouse wrote, 'without at least one imposter on the premises, Blandings Castle is never itself'. In Something Fresh there are two, each with an eye on a valuable Egytian amulet which Lord Emsworth has acquired without quite realizing how it came into his pocket. But of course things get a lot more complicated than this...

* Rivers of London (U.S. title: Midnight Riot) by Ben Aaronovitch [CRussel]
Goodreads | Amazon UK / Amazon US / Audible UK / Audible US / Overdrive eBook / Overdrive Audiobook
Print Length: 400 pages

Spoiler:

From Goodreads:

"I used to be probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service, and to everyone else as the Filth…"

Meet DC Peter Grant. He will show you his city. But it's not the capital that you see as you make your way from tube to bus, from Elephant to Castle. It's a city that under its dark surface is packed full of crime. And of magic. A city that you never suspected…

Gran't story starts when he tries to take a witness statement from a man who was already dead. And take him down a twisting, turning centuries' old mystery that reckons to set London on fire...

The nominations are now closed.

[GA Russell]

I'm going to nominate three books which came in second last year, and were therefore considered for January as well. Clearly, these books are appealling because they would not have finished in second place if no one was interested in them.

*****

Pitching in a Pinch by Christy Mathewson

Considered one of the best sports books ever written, and I imagine that summer is the best time to read it because it is about baseball.

Amazon - free
https://www.amazon.com/Pitching-Base.../dp/B004TPGQP0

B&N Nook - 99 cents
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pitc...sty/1100547781

Kobo - free
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/eb...m-the-inside-1

*****

The Invisible Man - HG Wells

Another famous classic I need to get around to reading.

Amazon - free
https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man...dp/B01BBKKUCA/

B&N Nook - $3.99
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/time...lls/1005704532

Kobo - free
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/eb...nvisible-man-7

*****

Now I'm going to diverge a little bit for my third nomination. Tom's nomination which finished second was the 17th Perry Mason book. I would like to go back to much earlier in the series and nominate Perry Mason #2, simply because it is so early.

The Case of the Sulky Girl - Erle Stanley Gardner

Amazon - $5.99
https://www.amazon.com/Case-Sulky-Gi...dp/B00IS811W2/

[din155]

I am going to nominate two books:

City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi by William Dalrymple

Spoiler:

‘Could you show me a djinn?’ I asked. ‘Certainly,’ replied the Sufi. ‘But you would run away.’

From the author of the Samuel Johnson Prize-shortlisted ‘The Return of a King’, this is William Dalrymple’s captivating memoir of a year spent in Delhi, a city watched over and protected by the mischievous invisible djinns. Lodging with the beady-eyed Mrs Puri and encountering an extraordinary array of characters – from elusive eunuchs to the last remnants of the Raj – William Dalrymple comes to know the bewildering city intimately.

He pursues Delhi’s interlacing layers of history along narrow alleys and broad boulevards, brilliantly conveying its intoxicating mix of mysticism and mayhem.

‘City of Djinns’ is an astonishing and sensitive portrait of a city, and confirms William Dalrymple as one of the most compelling explorers of India’s past and present.

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004WC07...I28DT52I5CJO8F

Death in the Dordogne: The first Bruno, Chief of Police investigation (Bruno Chief of Police Book 1) by Martin Walker

Spoiler:

It's market day in St Denis, a small town in the Périgord region of South West France. The locals are on the alert because inspectors are expected to make a 'surprise visit' in an attempt to enforce the unpopular and bureaucratic EU hygiene rules. But for Captain Bruno Courrèges, St Denis' Chief of Police, this particular market day turns into something far more serious.

An old man, head of a local immigrant North African family, is found viciously murdered. Suspicion falls on the son of the local doctor, but Bruno isn't so certain. He believes it to be an act of vengeance, with its motive hidden deep in France's divisive war-time past. As rumour and mistrust grow, Bruno must look beneath the surface of this normally calm community to find a brutal killer.

Amazon UK:https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004EYT5...I2VR8PCT2KMDVG

Sorry I will post other links in the evening.

[issybird]

I'll second City of Djinns. I read Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain last year and it was terrific; I've been meaning to read more by him.

[CRussel]

I'm remote and working off a tablet with Tapatalk, so please cut me some slack on this. I can't easily double-check if something has been nominated or selected before, and I can't come up with links easily either.

That being said, and keeping in mind issybird's desire for something fun for the summer. I think I'll second Bruno, Chief of Police, (This is the North American title for this book. ) I was going to nominate this anyway, as a perfect summer read. Especially since the latest in the series just became available in the U.S.

These books have excellent Audible versions narrated by Robert Ian Mackenzie.

Amazon US

Audible

Also note that while this is expensive at $11.99, there is an Overdrive option. Check your local library.

(Try it, issybird, you'll like it! )

[issybird]

It's a tad discouraging; my first thoughts were $11.99 and that's too pricey. But Nothing But Blue Skies by Tom Holt has been on my radar for a while; it sounds like fun for summer and it's $5.99.

There are very many reasons why British summers are either non-existent or, alternatively, held on a Thursday. Many of these reasons are either scientific, dull, or both - but all of them are wrong, especially the scientific ones.

The real reason why it rains perpetually from January 1st to December 31st (incl.) is, of course, irritable Chinese Water Dragons. Karen is one such legendary creature. Ancient, noble, near-indestructible and, for a number of wildly improbable reasons, working as an estate-agent, Karen is irritable quite a lot of the time. Hence Wimbledon.

But now things have changed and Karen's no longer irritable. She's FURIOUS.

Kindle Kobo OverDrive

[WT Sharpe]

I'll nominate Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. A tad long, at 610 pages, but a classic.

From Goodreads:

Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...-invisible-man

https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Vin.../dp/B003WUYR9K

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/invi...=9780307743992

https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/invisible-man-1

https://www.overdrive.com/media/480420/invisible-man

[CRussel]

I'll second Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man -- it's a classic and I haven't read it since I was a teenager, but it blew me away then.

[drofgnal]

I'll third Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

[pdurrant]

I'll put in a bid for a recent book, The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker, which I enjoyed a great deal.

Amazon UK
Amazon US

New York, 1899. Two strangers, one destiny.

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. [She] arrives in New York in 1899.

Ahmad is a djinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian desert. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.

The Golem & The Djinni is their magical, unforgettable story; unlikely friends whose tenuous attachment challenges their opposing natures

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I'll put in a bid for a recent book, The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker, which I enjoyed a great deal....

Known in the U.S. as The Golem and the Jinni. The British title has more pizzazz.

[Dazrin]

I will second The Golem and the Djinni. Excellent book. It came in second in June 2015 and I wouldn't mind a re-read at all.

Keeping with the theme I will third City of Djinns, it is one of only 3 nominated so far available at my library.

[WT Sharpe]

In the spirit of earlier posts I was going to nominate Jinn from Hyperspace: And Other Scribblings--Both Serious and Whimsical by Martin Gardner, but the only places that have it all seem to be Amazon, so I won't. But if anyone else does, I'll second it. Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914 – May 22, 2010) was a popular science writer who had a regular column in Scientific American for years.

[WT Sharpe]

Oh, what the heck! Let's Have a Djinn-fest!

Jinn from Hyperspace: And Other Scribblings--Both Serious and Whimsical by Martin Gardner

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...ious-whimsical

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jinn-Hypers.../dp/B002IYERMI

https://www.amazon.com/Jinn-Hyperspa.../dp/B002IYERMI

For over fifty years Martin Gardner has been delighting readers with elegant, witty, and highly intelligent writing on an amazing array of topics. Best known for his works on popular science and mathematics, and as an incisive skeptical commentator on the paranormal, Gardner is also an accomplished writer of children's literature, a novelist, and a prolific essayist on religion, philosophy, and other issues.
This new collection of Gardner gems takes its name from an essay on a mathematical theme, about a jinn (or genie) trapped in a "Klein Bottle"—an amusing tale that also teaches the math phobic something interesting about a theoretical one-sided object with no distinction between inside and outside. Other topics in math and physics include speculations about universes where time runs in reverse; the Banach-Tarski paradox (whereby a sphere, after being deconstructed, can be reassembled at twice its size); and a vigorous defense of the objective reality of mathematical theorems independent of human culture.
On the literary side, Gardner discusses two neglected works by G.K. Chesterton, one of which concerns an imaginary but now very topical war between Islam and Christianity. He also considers the fantasies of L. Frank Baum that don’t take place in Oz, Clement Moore’s ever-popular The Night Before Christmas, and the many fascinating books by Lewis Carroll that are sometimes overshadowed by his famous Alice in Wonderland.
A treat for longtime Gardner readers or the perfect introduction for newcomers, The Jinn from Hyperspace offers a rich selection of stimulating intellectual wonders.