The table below was extracted from the MAA's excellent list of math texts suitable for undergraduate libraries which spans a very wide of topics, such as Abelian Groups, Additive Number Theory, Manifolds, and Tensor Analysis. I've only extracted books that fall under the headings "Mathematics for the General Reader" and "Recreational Mathematics", which reflect my interests. My main aim was to find some gems that I hadn't come across before, such as the "Best Writings on Mathematics" series.
The only substantive changes I've made are to add links to the books' data at Amazon. This is not some sinister ploy to make me money, but as a source of more information, along with readers' comments and ratings.
I've also started adding entries of my own, which I labelled with an "ad" tag in the "Topics" column. If you would like to suggest some books, please contact me by e-mail.
Martin Gardner plays such an important role in popular maths that I've added a separate page listing his contributions.
The MAA's full list can be downloaded as an Excel file from their site, and you can also download this page as a spreadsheet.
Last updated: Oct. 28, 2022.
| Title (and Link) | Author | Publisher | Year | Rating | Topics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Flatland: An Edition with Notes and Commentary | Edwin A. Abbott, William F. Lindgren, and Thomas F. Banchoff | Cambridge Univ Press and MAA | 2009 | ** | Classic | Fiction and Poetry | Geometry |
| 1089, and all that | David Acheson | OUP | 1988 | ad | |
| A New Look at Geometry | Irving Adler | Dover | 2012 | Non-Euclidean Geometry | Geometry | Euclidean Geometry | |
| Mathematics Everywhere | Martin Aigner and Ehrhard Behrends, eds. | AMS | 2010 | Culture | Applied | |
| Treks into Intuitive Geometry | Jin Akiyama and Kiyoko Matsunaga | Springer | 2016 | Geometry | Polyhedra | Polytopes | |
| Mathematical People: Profiles and Interviews | Donald J. Albers and Gerald L. Alexanderson, eds. | A K Peters | 2008 | * | Biography |
| Fascinating Mathematical People: Interviews and Memoirs | Donald J. Albers, Gerald L. Alexanderson, and Constance Reid, eds. | Harcourt Brace Jonanovich Publishers | 2011 | * | Biography | History | Math as a Profession |
| Duel at Dawn: Heroes, Martyrs, and the Rise of Modern Mathematics | Amir Alexander | Harvard Univ Press | 2010 | History | |
| Charming Proofs: A Journey into Elegant Mathematics | C. Alsina and R. B. Nelsen | MAA | 2010 | * | Proofs and Logic | Recreational | Surveys |
| Magic Squares and Cubes | William S. Andrews | Cosimo | 2004 | * | Recreational |
| Problem Solving Through Recreational | Bonnie Averbach and Orin Chein | Dover | 2000 | * | Recreational |
| Mathematical Recreations and Essays | W.W. Rouse Ball and H.S.M. Coxeter | Dover | 1987 | * | Recreational |
| Beyond the Third Dimension: Geometry, Computer Graphics, and Higher Dimensions | Thomas F. Banchoff | W.H. Freeman | 1996 | *** | Geometry |
| Mathematical Brain Benders | Stephen Barr | Dover | 1982 | Problems | Recreational | |
| Pi in the Sky: Counting, Thinking, and Being | John D. Barrow | Back Bay Books | 1992 | ad | |
| Unsolved!: The History and Mystery of the World's Greatest Ciphers from Ancient Egypt to Online Secret Societies | Craig P. Bauer | Princeton Univ Press | 2017 | Cryptography | History | |
| The Ins and Outs of Peg Solitaire | John D. Beasley | Oxford Univ Press | 1992 | * | Recreational |
| A History of π | Petr Beckmann | St. Martin's Press | 1976 | History | |
| Fundamentals of Mathematics: The Real Number System and Algebra, Vol. I | H. Behnke, ed. | MIT Press | 1974 | Surveys | |
| Fundamentals of Mathematics: Geometry, Vol. II | H. Behnke, ed. | MIT Press | 1974 | Surveys | |
| Recreations in the Theory of Numbers | Albert Beiler | Dover | 1964 | Number Theory | Recreational | |
| The Mathematics of Various Entertaining Subjects | Jennifer Beineke and Jason Rosenhouse, eds. | Princeton Univ Press | 2016 | Recreational | |
| The Mathematics of Various Entertaining Subjects, Volume 2 | Jennifer Beineke and Jason Rosenhouse, eds. | Princeton Univ Press | 2017 | Combinatorial Geometry | Euclidean Geometry | Graph Theory | Recreational | |
| The Mathematics of Various Entertaining Subjects, Volume 3 | Jennifer Beineke and Jason Rosenhouse, eds. | Princeton Univ Press | 2019 | Recreational | |
| Mathematics: Queen and Servant of Science | Eric T. Bell | MAA | 1996 | Surveys | |
| Alex's Adventures in Numberland | Alex Bellos | Bloomsbury | 2020 | ad | |
| Randomness | Deborah J. Bennett | Harvard University Press; | 1999 | ad; Probability | Statistics | |
| Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, volume 1 | Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John Horton Conway, and Richard K. Guy | A K Peters | 2001 | *** | Combinatorial Games | Recreational |
| Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, volume 2 | Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John Horton Conway and Richard K. Guy | A K Peters | 2003 | *** | Recreational | Combinatorial Games |
| Winning Ways for Your Mathematical Plays, volume 3 | Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John Horton Conway and Richard K. Guy | A K Peters | 2003 | *** | Recreational | Combinatorial Games |
| The Joy of π | David Blatner | Walker Books | 1999 | ad | |
| Famous Problems of Geometry and How To Solve Them | Benjamin Bold | Dover | 1982 | Geometry | Problems | |
| Atlas of Science: Visualizing What We Know | Katy Borner | MIT Press | 2010 | History of Science | Science | |
| The Power of Networks: Six Principles that Connect Our Lives | Christopher G. Brinton and Mung Chiang | Princeton Univ Press | 2016 | Computer Science | Networks | |
| The Abacus and the Cross: The Story of the Pope Who Brought the Light of Science to the Dark Ages | Nancy Marie Brown | Basic Books | 2010 | ** | History |
| Einstein's Universe | Nigel Calder | Gramercy | 1988 | Science | |
| The Mathematical Recreations of Lewis Carroll: Pillow Problems and a Tangled Tale | Lewis Carroll | Dover | 1958 | Recreational | |
| Meta Math!: The Quest for Omega | Gregory Chaitin | Vintage | 2006 | ad | |
| The Art of Logic in an Illogical World | Eugenia Cheng | Basic Books | 2018 | Logic | |
| The Joy of Abstraction: An Exploration of Math, Category Theory, and Life | Eugenia Cheng | Cambridge University Press | 2022 | ad | |
| What's Happening in the Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 4 | Barry Cipra | AMS | 1998 | Surveys | |
| What's Happening in the Mathematical Sciences, Vol. 5 | Barry Cipra | AMS | 2002 | Scientists | Surveys | |
| Geometric Puzzle Design | Stewart Coffin | A K Peters | 2007 | Geometry | Recreational | |
| News & Numbers | Victor Cohn | Iowa State Univ Press | 1989 | * | |
| The Universe and the Teacup | K.C. Cole | Harcourt | 1998 | ad | |
| The Book of Numbers | John Horton Conway and Richard K. Guy | Copernicus Books (Springer) | 1996 | ** | Number Theory | Liberal Arts | Elementary Number Theory |
| In Pursuit of the Traveling Salesman: Mathematics at the Limits of Computation | William J. Cook | Princeton Univ Press | 2012 | Algorithms | Combinatorics | Group Theory | Theory of Computation | |
| What Is Mathematics? An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods | Richard Courant, Herbert Robbins, and Ian Stewart | Oxford Univ Press | 1996 | *** | Surveys |
| Number: The Language of Science | Tobias Dantzig | Pi Press | 2005 | ** | |
| Games, Gods and Gambling | F. N. David | Hafner Pub. | 1962 | * | Probability |
| The Lore of Large Numbers | Philip J. Davis | MAA | 1975 | ||
| Mathematics and Common Sense: A Case of Creative Tension | Philip J. Davis | A K Peters | 2006 | Philosophy | |
| 3.1416 and All That | Philip J. Davis and William G. Chinn | Dover | 2007 | * | |
| The Mathematical Experience | Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh | Mariner Books | 1999 | Surveys | |
| The Number Sense | Stanislas Dehaene | OUP | 2011 | ad | |
| A Lifetime of Puzzles: Honoring Martin Gardner | Erik D. Demaine, Martin L. Demaine, and Tom Rodgers, eds. | A K Peters | 2008 | Gardner | Puzzles | Recreational | |
| Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics | John Derbyshire | Plume | 2004 | ad | |
| Unknown Quantity: A Real and Imaginary History of Algebra | John Derbyshire | Plume | 2007 | ad | |
| Mathematics: New Golden Age | Keith Devlin | Columbia Univ Press | 2001 | ad | |
| The Millennium Problems: The Seven Greatest Unsolved Mathematical Puzzles of Our Time | Keith Devlin | Basic Books | 2002 | ||
| The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two-Dimensional World | A.K. Dewdney | Springer | 2000 | ||
| Magical Mathematics: The Mathematical Ideas that Animate Great Magic Tricks | Persi Diaconis and Ron Graham | Princeton Univ Press | 2011 | Recreational | |
| Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature | Marcus Du Sautoy | Harper Perennial | 2009 | ad | |
| The Number Mysteries: A Mathematical Odyssey Through Everyday Life | Marcus Du Sautoy | Macmillan | 2011 | ||
| The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics | Marcus Du Sautoy | Harper Perennial | 2012 | ad | |
| Amusements in Mathematics | Henry E. Dudeney | Dover | 1958 | Problems | Recreational | |
| 536 Puzzles and Curious Problems | Henry E. Dudeney | Dover | 1983 | *** | Recreational |
| The Canterbury Puzzles | Henry E. Dudeney | Dover | 2002 | Problems | Recreational | |
| Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics | William Dunham | Penguin Books | 1990 | *** | History |
| Euler: The Master of Us All | William Dunham | AMS | 1999 | ad | |
| Why do Buses Come in Threes? | Rob Eastaway, Jeremy Wyndham | Portico | 2020 | ad | |
| How Long is a Piece of String | Rob Eastaway, Jeremy Wyndham | Portico | 2021 | ad | |
| Mathematics and The Unexpected | Ivar Ekeland | Univ Of Chicago Press | 1990 | * | Surveys |
| The Best of All Possible Worlds: Mathematics and Destiny | Ivar Ekeland | Univ of Chicago Press | 2006 | Calculus of Variations | Physics | Optimization | |
| How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking | Jordan Ellenberg | Penguin | 2014 | ad | |
| Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else | Jordan Ellenberg | Penguin | 2021 | ad | |
| Top Secret Rosies: The Female Computers of World War II | LeAnn Erickson | LeAnn Erickson, PBS | 2010 | * | History |
| Foundations and Fundamental Concepts of Mathematics | Howard W. Eves | Dover | 1997 | Philosophy | |
| The Mathematical Magpie | Clifton Fadiman | Springer | 1997 | * | Literature |
| Fractals: A Very Short Introduction | Kenneth Falconer | Oxford Univ Press | 2013 | Fractals | |
| The Golden Ticket: P, NP and the Search for the Impossible | Lance Fortnow | Princeton Univ Press | 2013 | Theory of Computation | |
| Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality | Edward Frenkel | Basic Books | 2013 | Biography | |
| Handbook of Cubik Math | Alexander H. Frey and David Singmaster | Lutterworth Press | 2001 | Recreational | |
| From Pythagoras to Einstein | K. O. Friedrichs | MAA | 1975 | * | Geometry | History |
| Mathematics, Magic and Mystery | Martin Gardner | Dover | 1956 | * | Classic |
| The Mathematical Puzzles of Sam Loyd | Martin Gardner | Dover | 1959 | *** | Recreational |
| Martin Gardner's Sixth Book of Mathematical Diversions from Scientific American | Martin Gardner | Univ of Chicago Press | 1984 | * | Recreational. Series: 6/15. |
| Wheels, Life, and Other Mathematical Amusements | Martin Gardner | W.H. Freeman | 1985 | * | Recreational. Series: 10/15. |
| Time Travel and Other Mathematical Bewilderments | Martin Gardner | W.H. Freeman | 1987 | * | Recreational. Series: 12/15. |
| Riddles of the Sphinx and Other Mathematical Puzzle Tales | Martin Gardner | MAA | 1987 | Recreational | |
| Penrose Tiles To Trapdoor Ciphers, and the Return of Dr. Matrix | Martin Gardner | MAA | 1996 | * | Recreational. Series: 13/15. |
| The Colossal Book of Mathematics: Classic Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Problems | Martin Gardner | W.W. Norton | 2001 | ad. Selections from 1-15/15. | |
| Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games: The Entire Collection of His Scientific American Columns | Martin Gardner | MAA | 2005 | * | Recreational. Series 1-15/15. |
| Aha! Gotcha Aha! Insight: Aha! A Two Volume Collection | Martin Gardner | MAA | 2006 | * | Recreational |
| Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the Tower of Hanoi | Martin Gardner | Cambridge Univ Press and MAA | 2008 | * | Classic | Recreational. Series: 1/15. Originally entitled: The Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles & Diversions (1959). |
| Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube | Martin Gardner | Cambridge Univ Press and MAA | 2008 | * | Classic | Recreational. Series: 2/15. Originally entitled: The Second Scientific American Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Diversions (1961). |
| Sphere Packing, Lewis Carroll, and Reversi | Martin Gardner | Cambridge Univ Press/MAA | 2009 | * | Classic | Recreational. Series: 3/15. Originally entitled: New Mathematical Diversions from Scientific American (1961). |
| Knots and Borromean Rings, Rep-Tiles, and Eight Queens | Martin Gardner | Cambridge Univ Press/MAA | 2014 | *** | Recreational. Series: 4/15. Originally entitled: The Unexpected Hanging and Other Mathematical Diversions (1969). |
| The Mathematical Sciences: A Collection of Essays | George Boehm | MIT Press | 1969 | * | Surveys |
| Geometric Origami | Robert Geretschlager | Arbelos | 2008 | Recreational | Euclidean Geometry | |
| A Singular Mathematical Promenade | Étienne Ghys | ENS Editions | 2017 | * | Biography | Singularities | Surveys |
| Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live With Uncertainty | Gerd Gigerenzer | Gardners Books | 2003 | ad | |
| Geometry and its Applications in Arts, Nature and Technology | Georg Glaeser | Springer | 2020 | Geometry | |
| Chaos: Making a New Science | James Gleick | Penguin Books | 1988 | *** | Surveys |
| Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel | Rebecca Goldstein | W.W. Norton | 2006 | ad | |
| Polyominoes | Solomon W. Golomb | Princeton Univ Press | 1996 | ** | Recreational |
| Applied Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction | Alain Goriely | Oxford Univ Press | 2018 | Applied | |
| Naming Infinity | Loren Graham and Jean-Michel Kantor | Belknap Press | 2009 | Set Theory | Philosophy | Logic | History | |
| The Perfect Shape: Spiral Stories | Øyvind Hammer | Springer | 2017 | Culture | |
| A Mathematician's Apology | G. H. Hardy | Cambridge Univ Press | 1992 | *** | Math as a Profession | Social Science | Philosophy |
| 101 Careers in Mathematics | Deanna Haunsperger and Robert Thompson, eds. | AMS/MAA Press | 2019 | * | |
| Nonplussed! Mathematical Proof of Implausible Ideas | Julian Havil | Princeton Univ Press | 2007 | Proofs and Logic | Recreational | |
| The Irrationals: A Story of the Numbers You Can't Count On | Julian Havil | Princeton Univ Press | 2012 | Number Theory | Transcendence Theory | |
| God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs That Changed History | Stephen Hawking, ed. | Running Press | 2005 | ad | |
| Foolproof, and Other Mathematical Meditations | Brian Hayes | MIT Press | 2017 | ||
| Hex: The Full Story | Ryan B. Hayward and Bjarne Toft | CRC Press | 2019 | Recreational | |
| Martin Gardner in the Twenty-First Century | Michael Henle and Brian Hopkins, eds. | MAA | 2013 | Gardner | Recreational | |
| The Beauty of Everyday Mathematics | Norbert Herrmann | Springer | 2012 | Recreational | |
| What is Mathematics Really? | Reuben Hersh | OUP | 1999 | ad | |
| Algebra: A Very Short Introduction | Peter M. Higgins | Oxford Univ Press | 2015 | Abstract Algebra | Classical Algebra | |
| The Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics | Nicholas J. Higham, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2015 | ** | Applied | Surveys |
| Geometry and the Imagination | David Hilbert and S. Cohn-Vossen | AMS/Chelsea | 1999 | *** | Geometry |
| The Tower of Hanoi - Myths and Maths | Andreaas M. Hinz, Sandi Klavžar, Uroš Milutinović , and Ciril Petr | Birkhäuser | 2013 | Combinatorial Games | Combinatorics | Recreational | |
| Archimedes' Revenge: The Joys and Perils of Mathematics | Paul Hoffman | W.W. Norton | 1988 | ad | |
| The Man Who Loved Only Numbers | Paul Hoffman | Hyperion | 1998 | ** | Biography |
| Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid | Douglas R. Hofstadter | Basic Books | 1999 | *** | Recursion | Logic |
| Shapes, Space, and Symmetry | Alan Holden | Dover | 2015 | * | Euclidean Geometry | Polyhedra | Symmetry |
| What are the Chances?: Voodoo Deaths, Office Gossip, and Other Adventures in Probability | Bart K. Holland | John Hopkins Univ Press | 2002 | ad | |
| More Mathematical Morsels | Ross Honsberger | MAA | 1991 | Problems | Problems Olympiad Level | Recreational | |
| Sliding Piece Puzzles | Edward Hordern | Oxford Univ Press | 1987 | ** | Recreational | Puzzles |
| The Popularization of Mathematics | A. G. Howson and J. P. Kahane | Cambridge Univ Press | 1990 | * | |
| How to Lie with Statistics | Darrell Huff | W.W. Norton | 1993 | Statistics | |
| The Divine Proportion | H. E. Huntley | Dover | 2015 | ||
| The Universal History of Numbers: From Prehistory to the Invention of the Computer | Georges Ifrah | John Wiley & Sons | 2000 | ad | |
| Mathematics: A Human Endeavor | Harold R. Jacobs | W. H. Freeman | 1994 | * | |
| Adventures in Group Theory: Rubik's Cube, Merlin's Machine and Other Mathematical Toys | David Joyner | Johns Hopkins | 2008 | Group Theory | Puzzles | Recreational | |
| Mathematics of Planet Earth | Hans Kaper and Christiane Rousseau | SIAM | 2015 | Mathematical Geology | Environmental Sciences | |
| Out of the Labyrinth: Setting Mathematics Free | Robert Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan | Oxford Univ Press | 2007 | Surveys | Teaching | |
| Hidden Harmonies: The Lives and Times of the Pythagorean Theorem | Robert Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan | Bloomsbury Press | 2011 | * | History |
| Connections: The Geometric Bridge Between Art and Science | Jay Kappraff | World Scientifc | 2001 | ** | Surveys |
| Mathematical Gardner | David A. Klarner | John Wiley | 1982 | *** | Gardner | Recreational |
| Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty | Morris Kline | Oxford Univ Press | 1982 | * | Surveys |
| Mathematics and the Search for Knowledge | Morris Kline | Osford Univ Press | 1986 | * | Surveys |
| Surreal Numbers | Donald E. Knuth | Addison-Wesley | 1974 | * | Fiction and Poetry |
| Selected Papers on Fun and Games | Donald E. Knuth | CSLI Pub. | 2011 | * | Combinatorial Games | Combinatorics | Recreational |
| The Moscow Puzzles: 359 Mathematical Recreations | Boris A. Kordemsky | Dover | 1992 | Problems | Recreational | |
| Mathematical Recreations | Maurice Kraitchik | Dover | 2006 | Recreational | |
| Power-Up: Unlocking the Hidden Mathematics in Video Games | Matthew Lane | Princeton Univ Press | 2017 | ||
| The Beauty of Doing Mathematics: Three Public Dialogues | Serge Lang | Springer Verlag | 1985 | * | |
| Who's #1? — The Science of Rating and Ranking | Amy N. Langville and Carl D. Meyer | Princeton Univ Press | 2012 | Algorithms | Social Choice Theory | |
| Great Currents of Mathematical Thought : Mathematics in the Arts and Sciences, Vol. II | F. Le Lionnais | Dover | 2004 | Surveys | |
| Geometric Dissections | Harry Lindgren | Van Nostrand Reinhold | 1964 | ** | Recreational | Combinatorial Geometry |
| Art Meets Mathematics in the Fourth Dimension | Stephen Leon Lipscomb | Springer | 2014 | Low-dimensional Topology | |
| Littlewood's Miscellany | J. E. Littlewood, edited by Béla Bollobás | Cambridge Univ Press | 1986 | * | History | Math as a Profession |
| The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World's Most Astonishing Number | Mario Livio | Crown | 2003 | ad | |
| Measurement | Paul Lockhart | Harvard Univ Press | 2012 | ||
| Loyd's Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles, Tricks, and Conundrums | Sam Loyd | Ishi Press | 2007 | ** | Recreational |
| Nine Algorithms that Changed the Future | John MacCormick | Princeton Univ Press | 2012 | Algorithms | Computer Science | |
| What's Happening in the Mathematical Sciences 9 | Dana Mackenzie | AMS | 2013 | ||
| What's Happening in the Mathematical Sciences, Volume 10 | Dana Mackenzie and Barry Cipra | AMS | 2016 | ||
| What's Happening in the Mathematical Sciences, Volume 11 | Dana Mackenzie | AMS | 2019 | ||
| Street-Fighting Mathematics | Sanjoy Mahajan | MIT Press | 2010 | Estimation | |
| Trigonometric Delights | Eli Maor | Princeton Univ Press | 1998 | History | Trigonometry | |
| e: The Story of a Number | Eli Maor | Princeton Univ Press | 2016 | * | History |
| The Cult of Pythagoras: Math and Myths | Alberto A. Martinez | Univ of Pittsburgh Press | 2012 | History | Philosophy | |
| Fallacies in Mathematics | E. A. Maxwell | Cambridge Univ Press | 1959 | * | Recreational |
| Imagining Numbers (particularly the square root of minus fifteen) | Barry Mazur | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 2002 | ** | |
| Prime Numbers and the Riemann Hypothesis | Barry Mazur and William Stein | Cambridge Univ Press | 2016 | ** | Number Theory |
| The Theory that Would Not Die | Sharon Bertsch McGrayne | Yale Univ Press | 2011 | History | History of Statistics | |
| The Joy of SET: The Many Mathematical Dimensions of a Seemingly Simple Card Game | Liz McMahon, Gary Gordon, Hannah Gordon and Rebecca Gordon | Princeton Univ Press | 2016 | Combinatorial Games | Recreational | |
| Mathematical Ideas | Charles D. Miller, Vern E. Heeren, and E. John Hornsby, Jr. | Addison Wesley | 2003 | Liberal Arts | |
| The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives | Leonard Mlodinow | Vintage | 2009 | ad | |
| Powers of Ten | Philip Morrison and Phylis Morrison | W.H. Freeman | 1994 | ** | |
| Code Girls | Liza Mundy | Hachette Books | 2018 | Cryptography | |
| Godel's Proof | Ernest Nagel, James Newman, and Douglas R. Hofstadter | New York Univ Press | 2008 | ** | Philosophy | Logic |
| Chases and Escapes: The Mathematics of Pursuit and Evasion | Paul J. Nahin | Princeton Univ Press | 2007 | *** | Differential Equations |
| Mrs. Perkins's Electric Quilt | Paul J. Nahin | Princeton Univ Press | 2009 | Physics | |
| In Praise of Simple Physics | Paul J. Nahin | Princeton Univ Press | 2016 | Science | |
| An Imaginary Tale: The Story of √-1 | Paul J. Nahin | Princeton Univ Press | 2016 | ad | |
| The Logician and the Engineer: How George Boole and Claude Shannon Created the Information Age | Paul J. Nahin | Princeton Unv Press | 2017 | ad | |
| Closing the Gap: The Quest to Understand Prime Numbers | Vicky Neale | Oxford Univ Press | 2018 | Number Theory | |
| The Archimedes Codex | Reviel Netz and William Noel | Da Capo Press | 2007 | ** | History |
| The World of Mathematics, Vol. I | James R. Newman | Dover | 2000 | * | Surveys |
| The World of Mathematics, Vol. II | James R. Newman | Dover | 2000 | * | Surveys |
| The World of Mathematics, Vol. III | James R. Newman | Dover | 2000 | * | Surveys |
| The World of Mathematics, Vol. IV | James R. Newman | Dover | 2000 | * | Surveys |
| Riddles in Mathematics: A Book of Paradoxes | Eugene Purdy Northrop | Krieger Pub. | 1975 | * | Recreational |
| Puzzles and Paradoxes: Fascinating Excursions in Recreational | T. H. O'Beirne | Dover | 1984 | ** | Recreational |
| Weapons of Math Destruction | Cathy O'Neil | Crown | 2016 | Data Analysis | Politics | Society | Statistics | |
| My Search for Ramanujan: How I Learned to Count | Ken Ono and Amir D. Aczel | Springer | 2016 | Biography | History | Number Theory | |
| 99 Variations on a Proof | Phillip Ording | Princeton Univ Press | 2019 | ||
| Math Art: Truth, Beauty, and Equations | Stephen Ornes | Sterling | 2019 | ||
| The Mathematics of Games and Gambling | Edward Packel | MAA | 2006 | *** | Game Theory | Probability Theory |
| Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension | Matt Parker | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 2015 | ad | |
| Beyond Numeracy: Ruminations of a Numbers Man | John Allen Paulos | Vintage | 1992 | ||
| A Mathematician Reads the Newspapers: Making Sense of the Numbers in the Headlines | John Allen Paulos | Penguin Books | 1996 | ad | |
| Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences | John Allen Paulos | Hill and Wang | 2001 | Surveys | |
| The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe | Roger Penrose | Vintage | 2007 | ad | |
| Fashion, Faith and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe | Roger Penrose | Princeton Univ Press | 2016 | Physics | |
| phi, pi, e & i | David Perkins | MAA Press | 2017 | History | |
| Playing with Infinity | Rózsa Péter | Dover | 1976 | Recreational | |
| The Mathematical Tourist | Ivars Peterson | Owl Books | 1998 | *** | |
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2010 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2011 | ||
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2011 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2011 | ||
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2012 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2013 | ||
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2013 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2013 | Combinatorics | Elementary Number Theory | |
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2014 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2014 | ||
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2015 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2016 | ||
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2016 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2017 | ||
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2017 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2017 | ||
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2018 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2018 | ||
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2019 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2019 | ||
| The Best Writing on Mathematics 2020 | Mircea Pitici, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2020 | ||
| Logic: A Very Short Introduction | Graham Priest | Oxford Univ Press | 2018 | Logic | |
| Higher Mathematics from an Elementary Point of View | Hans Rademacher | Birkhauser | 1983 | ** | Surveys |
| The Enjoyment of Math | Hans Rademacher and Otto Toeplitz | Princeton Univ Press | 1966 | * | Surveys |
| Origami: Geometric Exercises in Paper Folding | T. Sundara Rao | Kindle | 2013 | * | |
| Tangrams: 330 Puzzles | Ronald C. Read | Dover | 1965 | * | Recreational |
| Euler's Gem: The Polyhedron Formula and the Birth of Topology | David S. Richeson | Princeton Univ Press | 2012 | ad | |
| Symmetry Discovered | Joe Rosen | Dover | 2015 | Group Theory | Symmetry | |
| Observation and Experiment: An Introduction to Causal Inference | Paul R. Rosenbaum | Harvard Univ Press | 2017 | Statistical Inference | Statistics | |
| Taking Sudoku Seriously | Jason Rosenhouse and Laura Taalman | Oxford Univ Press | 2011 | Combinatorics | Recreational | |
| Invisible in the Storm: The Role of Mathematics in Understanding Weather | Ian Roulstone and John Norbury | Princeton Univ Press | 2013 | Mathematical Geology | |
| Proving It Her Way: Emmy Noether, a Life in Mathematics | David E. Rowe and Mechtild Koreuber | Springer | 2020 | Biography | |
| Geometry Relativity, and the Fourth Dimension | Rudolf Rucker | Dover | 1977 | Geometry | Relativity Theory | |
| Infinity and the Mind | Rudy Rucker | Princeton Univ Press | 2005 | * | Logic | Set Theory |
| The Fourth Dimension | Rudy Rucker | Dover | 2014 | Euclidean Geometry | |
| The Riemann Hypothesis: The Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics | Karl Sabbagh | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 2003 | ad | |
| The Lady Tasting Tea | David S. Salsburg | Owl Books | 2002 | *** | Biography | History of Statistics |
| Errors, Blunders, and Lies: How to Tell the Difference | David S. Salsburg | Chapman & Hall/CRC | 2018 | Statistics | |
| Prelude to Mathematics | W. W. Sawyer | Dover | 1982 | ||
| M. C. Escher Kaleidocycles | Doris Schattschneider and Wallace Walker | Tarquin | 1985 | * | Recreational |
| An Invitation to Mathematics | Dierk Schleicher and Malte Lackmann, eds. | Springer | 2011 | * | Surveys |
| Visualizing Mathematics with 3D Printing | Henry Segerman | Johns Hopkins Univ Press | 2016 | * | Geometry | Low-dimensional Topology | Programming | Software | Symmetry | Visualization |
| Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea | Charles Seife | Penguin Books | 2000 | ad | |
| Games of Life: Explorations in Ecology, Evolution and Behavior | Karl Sigmund | Dover | 2017 | ad | |
| The Signal and the Noise | Nate Silver | Penguin Books | 2015 | Statistics | Statistics and Public Policy | |
| Your Move: Logic, Math and Word Puzzles for Enthusiasts | David L. Silverman | Dover | 1991 | * | Problems | Recreational |
| Rediscovering Mathematics: You Do the Math | Shai Simonson | MAA | 2011 | ||
| Fermat's Enigma | Simon Singh | Anchor Books | 1998 | ** | History | Number Theory |
| The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography | Simon Singh | Anchor | 2000 | ad | |
| Forever Undecided: A Puzzle Guide to Godel | Raymond M. Smullyan | Knopf | 1987 | * | Recreational |
| To Mock a Mockingbird | Raymond M. Smullyan | Oxford Univ Press | 2000 | * | Recreational |
| Gödelian Puzzle Book: Puzzles, Paradoxes and Proofs | Raymond M. Smullyan | Dover | 2013 | Logic | Puzzles | |
| Numbers and Infinity: A Historical Account of Mathematical Concepts | E. Sondheimer and A. Rogerson | Dover | 2006 | ** | History |
| Mathematics Tomorrow | Lynn Arthur Steen | Springer | 1981 | ** | Surveys |
| Mathematical Snapshots | Hugo Steinhaus | Dover | 1999 | * | Surveys |
| Adventures Among the Toroids | Bonnie Madison Stewart | B M Stewart | 1980 | * | |
| The Problems of Mathematics | Ian Stewart | Oxford Univ Press | 1992 | ** | |
| Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind | Ian Stewart | Cambridge Univ Press | 1997 | ad | |
| Life's Other Secret: The New Mathematics of the Living World | Ian Stewart | John Wiley & Sons | 1998 | ad | |
| The Magical Maze: Seeing the World Through Mathematical Eyes | Ian Stewart | John Wiley & Sons | 1998 | ad | Game theory, knots, chaos | |
| Does God Play Dice? The New Mathematics of Chaos | Ian Stewart | John Wiley | 2002 | ** | |
| How to Cut a Cake: And Other Mathematical Conundrums | Ian Stewart | Oxford Univ Press | 2006 | * | |
| Symmetry: A Very Short Introduction | Ian Stewart | Oxford Univ Press | 2013 | Group Theory | Lie Groups | Symmetry | |
| Visions of Infinity | Ian Stewart | Basic Books | 2013 | ||
| Concepts of Modern Mathematics | Ian Stewart | Dover | 2015 | Surveys | |
| Significant Figures | Ian Stewart | Basic Books | 2017 | Biography | History | |
| Infinity: A Very Short Introduction | Ian Stewart | Oxford Univ Press | 2018 | ||
| Roads to Infinity: The Mathematics of Truth and Proof | John Stillwell | A K Peters | 2010 | * | Set Theory | Logic | History |
| Elements of Mathematics: From Euclid to Godel | John Stillwell | Princeton Univ Press | 2016 | Philosophy | Surveys | |
| The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, from One to Infinity | Steven H. Strogatz | Mariner Books | 2013 | ad | |
| A Concise History of Mathematics | Dirk Jan Struik | Dover | 1987 | ** | History |
| Mathematics for Human Flourishing | Francis Su | Yale Univ Press | 2020 | ||
| Numbers Rule: The Vexing Mathematics of Democracy, from Plato to the Present | George G. Szpiro | Princeton Univ Press | 2010 | Social Science | Social Choice Theory | |
| Pricing the Future | George G. Szpiro | Basic Books | 2011 | ||
| Mathematics Galore! | James Tanton | MAA | 2012 | Problems | Recreational | |
| Famous Problems of Mathematics: Solved and Unsolved Mathematical Problems, from Antiquity to Modern Times | Heinrich Tietze | Graylock Press | 1965 | ** | |
| Birth of a Theorem | Cédric Villani | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 2015 | Mathematical Careers | Psychology | |
| Algorithms Unplugged | Berthold Vöcking et al. | Springer | 2011 | Computer Science | Algorithms | |
| Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity | David Foster Wallace | W. W. Norton | 2003 | ||
| The Nature of Statistics | W. Allen Wallis and Harry V. Roberts | Dover | 2014 | * | Statistics |
| A Wealth of Numbers: An Anthology of 500 Years of Popular Mathematics Writing | Benjamin Wardhaugh, ed. | Princeton Univ Press | 2012 | ** | History | Culture | Literature |
| Lady Luck: The Theory of Probability | Warren Weaver | Dover | 1982 | *** | Probability |
| On Aesthetics in Science | Judith Wechsler, ed. | Birkhauser | 1988 | ||
| The Penguin Book of Curious and Interesting Numbers | David Wells | Penguin Books | 1998 | ad | |
| Games and Mathematics: Subtle Connections | David Wells | Cambridge Univ Press | 2013 | Combinatorial Games | |
| The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry | David Wells, John Sharp | Penguin Books | 1992 | ad | |
| An Introduction to Mathematics | Alfred North Whitehead | Oxford Univ Press | 1958 | Surveys | |
| Four Colors Suffice: How the Map Problem Was Solved | Robin J. Wilson | Princeton University Press | 2004 | *** | Combinatorics | Famous Problems | Graph Theory | History |
| The Timing of Biological Clocks | Arthur T. Winfree | Scientific American Library | 1987 | ** | Science |
| The Honors Class: Hilbert's Problems and their Solvers | Benjamin H. Yandell | A K Peters | 2001 | ** | Biography | History |
| The Shape of Inner Space | Shing-Tung Yau and Steve Nadis | Basic Books | 2010 | Algebraic Geometry | Complex Manifolds | Physics | String Theory | |
| Do I Count? Stories from Mathematics | Gunter M. Ziegler | Chapman & Hall/CRC | 2013 |