What do wallpaper patterns, George Balanchine's Serenade, and Italian superstitions have in common?
They're all included in the entry for the number 17 in this clever, surprising, and engaging book that reveals the secret language of numbers.
Number Freak is a guided tour of the numbers 1 to 200, covering everything from basic mathematical principles to ancient unsolved theorems, from sublime theory to delightfully ridiculous trivia, and spanning the worlds of science, nature, sports, literature, pop culture, and more.
Get ready to see numbers - and their properties, patterns, and propensities - in a new way.

From the shuttered factories of the rust belt to the look-alike strip malls of the sun belt - and almost everywhere in between - America has been transformed by its relentless fixation on low price. This pervasive yet little examined obsession is arguably the most powerful and devastating market force of our time - the engine of globalization, outsourcing, planned obsolescence, and economic instability in an increasingly unsettled world.

Low price is so alluring that we may have forgotten how thoroughly we once distrusted it.
Ellen Ruppel Shell traces the birth of the bargain as we know it from the Industrial Revolution to the assembly line and beyond, homing in on a number of colorful characters, such as Gene Verkauf (his name is Yiddish for "to sell"), ... more