While it’s not as exciting as my friend who managed to buy a many-hundred-dollar-valued autographed book for a couple of bucks recently, I had what I think was a very cool used book experience yesterday. I spotted a copy of Penrose’s The Emperor’s New Mind on the $1 rack outside the local used book store, which I’ve been curious to skim. Well, it was on the cheap rack because there are notes scattered through the margins of the book, but they’re tidy notes, so I decided to buy it anyway. However, on closer examination, the book was labelled as having belonged to a “W. Robert Mann”, which any math major will immediately identify as the name of one of the authors of the classic Advanced Calculus by Taylor & Mann. Granted, it’s plausible that multiple people would share this name, but the previous owner was also kind enough to note that the book was purchased at McIntyre’s Book Shop, which is in Pittsboro, NC, not far from UNC, where Dr. Mann is listed as a professor emeriti. And the comments clearly come from someone fluent in mathematics. So, I am going to chose to believe that I’ll be reading the criticisms of the man whose textbook introduced me to advanced mathematics. His very first note reads:
One of the seductive fascinations of mathematics is that every subject turns out, in the long run, to be merely a small part of something else.
Hi Amanda,
What fun reading your story about Dad’s book. He always wrote interesting comments in the margins. I’m now enjoying reading some myself. He was a wonderful dad and I was lucky to have had him in my life as long as I did. He recently passed away at age 85. Carol