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Book of the Year

Book of the Year 2019

We announce the winner of this coveted prize

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27 February 2020

This post is part of the Chalkdust Magazine Book of the Year 2019.

A few weeks ago, we announced the 9 book shortlist for the 2019 Chalkdust Book of the Year. In this post, we announce the winner of this award.

We will be awarding two prizes: the Chalkdust Book of the Year (as chosen by our editors), and the Chalkdust Readers’ Choice (as voted for by our readers).

Chalkdust Book of the Year 2019

We found picking a winner of this award really difficult, as all the books on the shortlist were deserving of the prize (obviously, as if not they wouldn’t have made the shortlist). The one thing that set the winner apart from the other books was its appeal to both mathematicians and non-mathematicians. And the winner is:

The Maths of Life and Death

Kit Yates

This book (Amazon UK, Waterstones), as its title suggests, is all about the maths of life and death. It looks at the maths related to law, biology, medicine, the spread of diseases, and many more areas. Kit takes you through these areas with a series of interesting and well-written stories.

You can read our full review of The Maths of Life and Death here.

Chalkdust Readers’ Choice 2019

As well as picking our favourite from the shortlist, we held a vote for our readers to pick their favourite. The runaway winner of this poll was:

A Compendium Of Mathematical Methods: A handbook for school teachers

Jo Morgan

This book (Amazon UK, Waterstones, Foyles) contains details of various methods of completing various mathematical tasks, including subtraction, multiplication, simplifying surds, and polynomial division. Each method is demonstrated by example and reasons why each method works are discussed. This book is an excellent reference for secondary teachers, as well as an interesting book to browse through for the mathematically curious.

You can read our full review of A Compendium Of Mathematical Method here.

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