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To be on this list the book must satisfy the following conditions:

  1. It doesn't require an enormous amount of background material to understand.
  2. It must be a fun book, either in recreational math (or something close to) or in philosophy of math.

Here are my two contributions to the list:

  1. What is Mathematics? Courant and Robbins.
  2. Proofs that Really Count. Benjamin and Quinn.
  • 13
    I'm not a big fan of big lists. Not that it matters.2012-07-07
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    I find well-written textbooks more fun than "recreational math" books.2012-07-07
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    Yeah, you're probally right. However, many textbooks require a lot of background material, which is why I decided to restrict the books to the above categories.2012-07-07
  • 0
    I wonder if Gardner's books count...2012-07-08
  • 1
    @lhf You're also not a small fan of small lists, small lists are ok.2012-07-08
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    [Real questions have answers, not items.](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/01/real-questions-have-answers/) [Avoid asking subjective questions where… every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite ______?”; your answer is provided along with the question, and you expect more answers: “I use ______ for ______, what do you use?”](http://math.stackexchange.com/faq#dontask)2012-07-08
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    I'm curious how you missed du Sautoy: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marcus-Du-Sautoy/e/B001JOS6XY2012-07-08
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    This answer should be closed as off-topic. Besides, it's a dup of [this question](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/275/best-maths-books-for-non-mathematicians/364#364) anyways.2012-07-08
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    @BlueRaja-DannyPflughoeft Math.SE has accepted big-lists, especially as comm-wiki, and this is a different question to the one you suggested: I wouldn't have even thought of my answer for that question.2012-07-09
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    I think answers are much better if they say something about why the books are suited for the list. Chris Dugale: Could you please add why your two contributions are answers?2012-08-01

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