Author Archives: wendywelch

The Monday Book: The Mathematician’s Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer

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book-mathematiciansshiva-rojstaczer-cvr-200So if David Lodge were Jewish….

This is a comedy of errors and misfits that isn’t all that funny, but it runs through so many kinds of worlds in its multi-layered unfunniness that sometimes it is. It’s not the way he writes the book but what he writes about that kept me going. On one level it’s about a guy who doesn’t really like his mother although he’s required to love AND admire her because she’s a brilliant mathematician. On another level it’s about what humans want (yes, that broad) and what it means to be in survival mode versus conquer mode. And on another level it’s just plain mean fun about math geeks.

It wasn’t a “can’t put it down” but it was an enjoyable bedtime read. The characters are well-drawn, and we all know I’m a sucker for those. If some of the humorous antics were predictable, well, it was still funny.

The plot premise is that Rachela, the mom who dies at the beginning of the book, has solved an unsolvable math problem, but hidden her papers out of pique. Enter Three Academic Stooges trying to pry up her floorboards.

This isn’t so much dark humor as grey, and if you like math, it’s a bit weak in that department. But if you like comedies of human errors and foibles, it’s fun.

3.14159265359 stars? :]

Snowed Into a Bookstore

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snow roadWhen the all-powerful “They” announced it would start snowing Thursday night and not stop until Saturday evening, I went into supply overdrive. Since I was in Richmond doing the annual advocacy for rural meetings, while I careened down I-81, Our Good Chef Kelley was drafted into buying:

  1. two boxes of wine (don’t knock it until you’ve tried the Malbec)
  2. Three bags grain free cat food, two 32-packs can boxes, and some tins of Ol’ Roy (yes, the dogs are hard done by)
  3. chocolate – dark for Jack, milk for me. Easier on the marriage that way

The rest we could take care of for ourselves. Jack stepped across the street to the liquor store and laid in two bottles of the cheap and one of the finest. You know, just in case company came by. (And no, we didn’t buy this house because it was across the street from the liquor store, but it’s worked out well.)

Then we started trolling the bookstore shelves. For me, eight of the new arrivals I’d not handled coming in, ranging from historic fiction to a couple of memoirs to a cheap romance and one history volume. Plus a couple of recorded books, so I could get some crocheting done.

Jack pulled Scottish politics, a couple of conspiracy theory books on assorted points in history (pick one) and – wonder of wonders – a sci fi. When I pointed that out to him, he frowned, “1663 by Dave Weber is fiction? Never mind, then.” He put it back.

Oh well.

And when we woke up Friday morning, snowpocalypse in full fall, we checked our emails, posted our Facebook cats, put on another pot of coffee, and settled in to enjoy the treasure trove.

Yes, being snowed into a bookstore is exactly what it’s cracked up to be.

Go by, mad world.