Skip to content
Responsive image
Vendor
Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English

MATH GAMES WITH BAD DRAWINGS

Ben Orlin

75 1/4 Simple, Challenging, Go-Anywhere Games - And Why They Matter

Bestselling author and worst-drawing artist Ben Orlin expands his oeuvre with this interactive collection of mathematical games. With 70-plus games, each taking a minute to learn and a lifetime to master, this treasure trove will delight, educate, and entertain.
From beloved math popularizer Ben Orlin comes a masterfully compiled collection of dozens of playable mathematical games. This ultimate game chest draws on mathematical curios, childhood classics, and soon-to-be classics, each hand-chosen to be (1) fun, (2) thought-provoking, and (3) easy to play. With just paper, pens, and the occasional handful of coins, you and a partner can enjoy hours of fun - and hours of challenge.

Orlin's sly humor, expansive knowledge, and so-bad-they're-good drawings show us how simple rules summon our best thinking.

Games include: Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe, Sprouts, Battleship, Quantum Go Fish, Dots and Boxes, Black Hole, Order and Chaos, Sequencium, Paper Boxing, Prophecies, Arpeggios, Banker, Francoprussian Labyrinth, Cats and Dogs, and many more.

Ben Orlin is the author of Math with Bad Drawings (as well as the blog of the same name) and Change is the Only Constant. His writing on math and education has appeared in The Atlantic, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, Vox, and Popular Science. He has taught middle and high school mathematics and has spoken about math and education at colleges and universities across the United States. He lives with his wife and daughter in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Available products
Book

Published 2022-04-05 by Black Dog & Leventhal

Book

Published 2022-04-05 by Black Dog & Leventhal

Comments

Ben Orlin is such an interesting thinker, he is a wonderful mix of informed, funny and creative. This book is a delight, pages and pages of engaging math games. I will carry this with me everywhere, and my mathematical thinking will be better because of it.

MATH WITH BAD DRAWINGS is a gloriously goofy word?number?and?cartoon fest that drags math out of the classroom and into the sunlight where it belongs. Great for your friend who thinks they hate math - actually, great for everyone!

Brilliant, wide ranging, and irreverent, Math with Bad Drawings adds ha ha to aha. It'll make you smile ? plus it might just make you smarter and wiser.

The book is a more polished, extensive discussion of the concepts that pepper Orlin's blog, featuring his trademark caustic wit, a refreshingly breezy conversational tone, and of course, lots and lots of bad drawings. It's a great, entertaining read for neophytes and math fans alike because Orlin excels at finding novel ways to connect the math to real?world problems?or in the case of the Death Star, to problems in fictional worlds.

Chinese (simpl.): United Sky ; Korean: Booklife ; Russian: Alpina Non-fiction

A beautifully produced compendium of maths games that is destined to be a classic of popular maths literature.

Ben Orlin is terribly bad at drawing. Luckily he's also fantastically clever and charming. His talents have added up to the most glorious, warm, and witty illustrated guide to the irresistible appeal of mathematics.

I'm loving this math book with puzzles. Such a gentle, playful way to teach these abstract concepts. Like a pill pocket for math!

Orlin's ability to masterfully convey interesting and complex mathematical ideas through the whimsy of drawings (that, contrary to the suggestion of the title, are actually not that bad) is unparalleled. This is a great work showing the beauty of mathematics as it relates to our world. This is a must read for anyone who ever thought math isn't fun, or doesn't apply to the world we live in!

So good, I'm not even jealous... It's just stellar.

Mathematicians keep insisting that math is fun, but most people who have taken a math class might be skeptical. Ben Orlin's new book of mathematical games reveals where the fun has been lurking all along. The games themselves are easy to learn, promise hours of enjoyment, and will introduce you to some pretty advanced concepts along the way.