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  "description": "Letter No. 135: Includes math—or, in King’s English, maths—and mention of Ægypt, which you will not find on a map.",
  "path": "/book-report-for-february-2026-2/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-15T19:38:29.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.dalekeiger.net",
  "tags": [
    "Dr Essai’s Biliothèque",
    "** _The Big Bang of Numbers_**",
    "**_The Solitudes_**"
  ],
  "textContent": "**Special notice:**_The Joggled Mind_ recently experienced some difficulty with the site’s back end—please, no puerile jokes—that resulted in the majority of subscribers not receiving this letter. If you are among the minority who did receive it, please excuse the duplication. We _think_ we have resolved the problem, but it will be a few days before we know for sure. Thank you for your patience. You are a superior human being.\n\n* * *\n\n**The doctor was a bit short on completions this month,** mostly due to slow progress through the Crowley, which is not a breezy read. But then, the doctor is not a breeze fellow. Any volume purchased through Dr Essai’s Biliothèque results in a small kickback from Bookshop.org. All legal and aboveboard. Thank you for your attention to this matter!\n\n##### Completed\n\n  * ** _The Big Bang of Numbers_****, Manil Suri.** Clever popular mathematics book. Suri writes it as a thought experiment: What if we imagined writing a set of instructions for the creation of the universe, and those instructions were all in math? In the beginning is a clever illustration of math creating something from nothing, and Suri then takes us through how arithmetic, geometry, and algebra could equip Creation to fashion our universe. Intellectual fun, if you like that sort of thing.\n\n\n\n  * **_The Solitudes_****, John Crowley.** As has been true of every Crowley book I’ve read (this one is the fifth),  _The Solitudes_ is dense, challenging, erudite, sophisticated, and well crafted. A few sections were a bit much to get through, but my only real complaint is that the story halts without a sense of resolution. The book is the first of the four-volume  _Ægypt_ cycle and not enough of a self-contained story. I felt less like I’d finished a novel and more like I’d just stopped partway through a very long tale. Which, I guess, I did.\n\n\n\n##### In progress\n\n  *  _Some Trick_ , Helen DeWitt.\n  * _Fairyland_ , Paul McAuley.\n\n\n\n##### Purchased\n\n  *  _Frog, and Other Essays_ , Anne Fadiman.\n  * _The Silver Snarling Trumpet_ , Robert Hunter.\n  * _Fairyland_ , Paul McAuley.\n\n\n\nAs always, dear Jogglers, thank you for reading.\n\n**Next up:** Demagogues detest art because it’s impure. More fun than it sounds.",
  "title": "Book report for February 2026",
  "updatedAt": "2026-03-15T19:38:29.550Z"
}