Bøger af Alec Wilkinson

First published in 1985 by Alfred A. Knopf.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice"Wilkinson has accomplished something more moving and original, braiding his stumbling attempts to get better at math with his deepening awareness that there's an entire universe of understanding that will, in some fundamental sense, forever lie outside his reach." -Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times"There is almost no writer I admire as much as I do Alec Wilkinson. His work has enduring brilliance and humanity." -Susan Orlean, author of The Library BookA spirited, metaphysical exploration into math's deepest mysteries and conundrums at the crux of middle age.Decades after struggling to understand math as a boy, Alec Wilkinson decides to embark on a journey to learn it as a middle-aged man. What begins as a personal challenge-and it is challenging-soon transforms into something greater than a belabored effort to learn math. Despite his incompetence, Wilkinson encounters a universe of unexpected questions in his pursuit of mathematical knowledge and quickly becomes fascinated; soon, his exercise in personal growth (and torture) morphs into an intellectually expansive exploration.In A Divine Language, Wilkinson, a contributor to The New Yorker for more than forty years, journeys into the heart of the divine aspects of mathematics-its mysteries, difficulties, and revelations-from antiquity to the present. As he submits himself to the lure of deep mathematics, he takes the reader through his investigations into the subject's big questions: number theory and the creation of numbers, the debate over math's human or otherworldly origins, problems and equations that remain unsolved after centuries, the conundrum of prime numbers. Writing with warm humor and sharp observation as he traverses practical math's endless frustrations and rewards, Wilkinson provides an awe-inspiring account of an adventure in a land of strange sights. Part memoir, part metaphysical travel book, and part journey in self-improvement, A Divine Language is one man's second attempt at understanding the numbers in front of him and the world beyond.

Classic memoir by a New Yorker writerSet on Cape Cod, MassachusettsOne of four titles in the relaunch of Godine's Nonpareil imprint

A compelling reflection on wisdom, friendship, and the craft of writing, My Mentor is also the touching story of a young man's education at the hands of a master, William Maxwell. At age twenty-four, Alec Wilkinson approached Maxwell in hopes of being taught to write. A quarter century of friendship followed. As a fiction editor of The New Yorker, Maxwell was unquestionably one of the past century's most respected editors; as the author of the masterpieces They Came Like Swallows and So Long, See You Tomorrow, he was one of its greatest American writers. His unparalleled ear for language and eye for detail, his depth of understanding and experience, make his instructions on writing an essential guide to the craft. In honoring this great man of letters, Wilkinson creates a "deft and sympathetic portrait" (New York Times Book Review).

The story of the only person to attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon, and the golden age of Polar Exploration.In August 1930 a Norwegian sloop sailing in the Arctic Ocean moored at a remote island. Here, the crew members found a body leaning against a rock. When they saw a large monogram 'A' on the body's jacket, they realized who the unfortunate adventurer had been: S. A. Andree, the Swede who, in 1897, set off to discover the North Pole, one of the last unmapped places on earth.The Ice Balloon is the story of the heroic era of polar exploration, and the dream of conquering one of the most inhumane landscapes on earth. In this golden age of discovery, Andree's ambition was the most original and remarkable. For, of the thousand or so people who had gone looking for the Pole, most of whom perished on the way, only Andree used a balloon.

Poppa Neutrino is a philosopher of movement, a vernacular Buddhist, a San Francisco bohemian, a polymath, a pauper, a football strategist for the Red Mesa Redskins of the Navajo Nation, and a mariner who built a raft from materials he found on the streets of New York and sailed across the North Atlantic.