Tuesday, May 28, 2013

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa


Ogawa weaves a lyrical story about the importance of memory and connection with her story of a mathematics professor who has only eighty minutes of short-term memory and the housekeeper who falls in love with the beauty of numbers under his tutelage. The prose is spare and reminiscent of the best in Japanese poetry, and Ogawa doesn’t shy away from using real mathematical theories such as Euler’s formula or abundant versus deficient prime numbers. Don’t let the math scare you away: The elegance of the writing will change your whole view of numbers and the comfort that can be found in them. 

Leatherby Libraries Call Number: PL 858. G37 H3513 2009, 2nd Floor Humanities

Review submitted by Lugene Rosen, Reference Librarian, Leatherby Libraries
Rating: Highly Recommended

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