In Honor of Pi Day, 6 Great Novels for Math Nerds

A Doubter’s Almanac, by Ethan Canin
This bestselling novel from the critically beloved author of America America spans 70 years in the life of mathematical genius Milo Andret, from his childhood, to his academic superstardom, to the scars he leaves on his son, Hans, a genius in his own right. Canin deftly interweaves mathematics, family, addiction, grief, and love to produce an elegant, powerfully written novel that brings the reader into a fraught world of genius and struggle.

Proof, by David Auburn
Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece follows Catherine, a brilliant young woman who has spent the last several years caring for her math genius father, who is suffering from mental illness. Picking up a week after his death, the play deals with Catherine’s own struggle to define the line between brilliance and madness as she navigates the loss of her father and a tentative, difficult new romance. Proof won the Tony Award in 2001 and was turned into a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, and Jake Gyllenhaal.

An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green
This charming young adult novel, about a teenage prodigy who tries to prove a theorem that will predict the ultimate end of any relationship, is stuffed to the brim with surprisingly accurate math. Green, who declares he “sucks” at math while still being really into it, actually consulted with a mathematician friend as he wrote the book, and there’s an appendix filled with graphs and equations at the end. Funny, smart, and tender, An Abundance of Katherines is a great read for math lovers young and old.

Flowers from the Storm, by Laura Kinsale
Laura Kinsale’s beloved romance about a mathematician who suffers a debilitating stroke and the Quaker woman he falls in love with appears with astonishing frequency on “best of romance” lists, and for good reason. Weaving together linguistics, math, disability, and religion alongside the main love story, Kinsale’s novel is intensely absorbing, poignant, and even funny.

Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
It was hard to pick which Neal Stephenson novel deserves to represent his work on this list, and if I’m honest, Cryptonomicon probably edged out the competition because I’ve always liked the title, so, you know, check out Anathem too. Starting in the 1940s with a mathematician who becomes a cryptoanalyst for the Allies (and hangs out with Alan Turing along the way), and moving on to the life of his grandson, a computer genius in the present day, Cryptonomicon is an exciting and challenging technological adventure.

The Mind-Body Problem, by Rebecca Goldstein
Goldstein’s first novel was a runaway hit when it was published more than 30 years ago, and it’s still easy to see why. The hysterically funny story of a young philosophy graduate student who marries a famous mathematician and then finds herself struggling to balance the life of the mind with the life of the body, The Mind-Body Problem offers hilarious takes on academia, philosophy, genius, marriage, and family, and is a delightful and startlingly clever read.