The Single Most Valuable Math Book You Probably Haven't Heard About

Recently, I’ve had the pleasure of reading “Thinking mathematically” by J. Mason, L. Burton and K. Stacey. The book has been recommended to me in a random Twitter conversation and since I haven’t really heard about it before (nor had I any familiarity with its authors) I decided to push in on top of my reading list out of sheer curiosity regarding its praising reviews. And oh boy, was I not disappointed! In essence, this book is a recipe on how to start thinking like a mathematician when tackling problems. Through numerous examples, it teaches you how to approach a challanging problem, how to get into a right mindset, how to overcome (and enjoy!) the state of being STUCK, how to find the right example cases to get started, how to look for links between what is KNOWN and what is UNKNOWN, how to conjecture and evolve possible solutions and, finally, how to REFLECT on a problem after the dust has settled. Don’t expect, however, this to be an easy read - the only way to get the most of it, is to invest sufficient amount of time to apply all the described techniques on real problems listed in later chapters. I assure you, though, that the investment will be totally worth it. My only negative feeling after reading this book was that I haven’t read it earlier, preferably around high school, since this is usually the time we start to really think about our future careers and begin to dive deeper into math. I think young adepts will defintelly get the most of this book, but even if you’re years past your math education I’m sure you’ll still find this book extremely insightful (provided you don’t have a chronic aversion to math!), so, if you haven’t already, do yourself a favour and reserve a few weeks to get through this jewel.