A Divine Language

A "moving and original" memoir from the award-winning New Yorker writer about the profound discoveries he makes while learning math as an adult (Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times)

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

Decades after struggling to understand math as a boy, Alec Wilkinson embarks 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 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. 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.

"Alec Wilkinson is a spare, clear, and lucid writer who works in stylistic simplicity with material that is not simple at all." —Peter Matthiessen, National Book Award–winning author of Shadow Country