I have just finished the book “Finding Moonshine” by Marcus Du Sautoy and this is a very brief review.

This book starts off weakly and then gets much stronger. For me, the story of Evariste Galois was the highlight of this book. It also covers the story of many other great mathematicians, such as Targaglia, Cardano, Newton, Leibniz, Gauss, Lie and Conway.

It explains how mathematics is like music. Also covered is the role that mathematics has played in cryptography and data compression.

I found the ending to be a bit weak, but overall it was a good read.

Further Reading

Review in The Guardian

Story of Mathematics: Mathematicians