Q&A with Eugenia Cheng

Eugenia Cheng is the author of the new book How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics. She teaches at the School of Mathematics and Statistics in the University of Sheffield in the U.K., and is the scientist in residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She lives in Chicago.

Q: Your book combines mathematics and food. What do you see as the relationship between the two?

A: I love food and I love math, but unfortunately most people love food more than math. I have always liked telling unexpected stories to give more character and "flavor" to math, and I realised that the ones involving food were particularly popular with my students, especially when it involved a demonstration.

I enjoyed it too as I secretly always wanted to be on a cooking show. And if I enjoy my explanations that's a good start - if I find my own explanations boring then I have no hope of interesting anyone else. Math is a lot more like food than people realise. Both are really about putting some ingredients together in funny ways and seeing if the result is delicious or not.

Q: You ask the question, "[I]f math is easy, why does anyone find it hard?" How do you answer that, and why do many people feel intimidated by math?

A: Spoiler alert: the answer is in my book! Basically math can seem hard if you're not given a reason to care about it, and if nobody helps you understand why it is the way it is. 

It can seem hard if you think you've got the right answer but you're then told it's the wrong answer. It can seem hard if it's presented as a bunch of rules you have to follow for no particular reason. 

I hate following rules. Actually I think a lot of research mathematicians hate following rules: we like making up our own rules that have good justification for existing, and that's what math is really about.  It's just often taught without the explanation and motivation.

I think many people feel intimidated by math because those who are good at math too often go round intimidating those who are not good. Making others feel stupid is one way that people use to feel better about themselves. I should add that I do not support this type of activity!

Q: For those of us who don't know much about category theory, how would you best describe it, and how does it relate to everyday life?

A: As in the subtitle of my book, it's the "Mathematics of Mathematics."  Mathematics is about understanding how things work, and so category theory is about understanding how mathematics works. 

I believe mathematics is the core of thinking: it's everything that is logical, which is the central nervous system of thought - or at least, it should be.  Unfortunately, it too often isn't! Not everything in life behaves according to logic, but I believe it's important to understand which parts do. 

This is the sense in which my work relates to everyday life. It's not about calculations or answering specific questions or solving specific problems.  It's about how to think.

Q: What surprised you most as you researched and wrote this book?

A: I was surprised that everyone wanted me to put more technical mathematical content into it!

Q: What are you working on now?

A: My next book is about infinity. This causes people to make jokes like, "How does it end?" I guess I'll have to get used to this!

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: I really like broccoli dipped in chocolate, but have not yet met anyone else who does. Anyone out there?

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Nov. 4

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Nov. 4, 1916: Walter Cronkite born.

Q&A with Susan Dworkin

Susan Dworkin is the co-author, with Edith Hahn Beer, of The Nazi Officer's Wife. Her other books include The Commons and The Viking in the Wheat Field. She spent 10 years as a contributing editor to Ms. magazine, and she is based in the Berkshires.

Q: How did you meet Edith Hahn Beer, and how did you end up working on this book with her?

A: I met her because a lawyer who was working with this project called me. I had a lot of experience being a collaborative writer, and he said, Get on a plane and go to the Holocaust Museum, where there’s a nice old lady being honored. There was a reception [commemorating] an archive of papers that had belonged to Edith [and had been] donated to the Holocaust Museum.

That’s what I did—I sat on a bench with her and she told me this story. I said, This is a great story.

Q: What was the writing process like between the two of you?

A: I wrote the book with Edith, so it was always her story. She had complete approval of every word. She was not a native English speaker, and she was elderly. I didn’t know whether she would remember everything.

There was a lot of background research to be done—she, who had been involved, might not know [all the] historical details.

I went to Netanya and got myself a room at a pension by the sea. Every day, I would go to Edith’s house with a tape recorder. I would ask her questions [and she would] tell me again and again. Every time she went over material she would remember some detail and the story would become enriched.

Q: Did you confirm details with other people she had known?

A: Sadly, no, because everybody was dead…Angela [Edith’s daughter] knew the story in and out, and she was a source.

All the German materials, I had translated [by a German speaker]. She translated every single thing. I had another young lady who did [additional] background research for me in Germany. She went and found exactly what was on display at the museum, exactly what was on the radio.

Edith remembered everything. There were some things she might not have known—exactly which planes [the company her husband worked for] was producing.

Q: How long did it take to complete the book?

A: A little more than two years. It was very important to me to verify everything. The world swarms with Holocaust deniers. The minute they can find a hole in a story, they will toss out the whole history of the slaughter of the Jews. I was very careful to verify everything.

It’s a tribute to Edith—you always expect somebody to say, No, it didn’t happen that way. In 15 years [since the book first came out], that didn’t happen. It’s selling in 16 or 17 countries….

Q: As you worked on the book, what surprised you most about her story?

A: I had not realized what a phenomenally sexist regime the Nazis were. I realized Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale had taken inspiration from this regime. The oppression of women, the horrible program where women were forced to have babies with men who were racially pure…

I did not realize the Nazis had created a situation in which most German men [of a certain age] were at the front, and the country was filled with slave laborers [from other countries]…her description of the home front was extremely surprising to me.

Q: This book was first published more than a decade ago, and now is available in a new edition. What accounts for the continuing interest in Edith's story and the publication of this new edition?

A: Nobody knows. Maybe it’s a digital miracle, with Amazon and the e-book revolution. The book always did well, and has done well around the world…

About two years ago, I don’t know why, sales of the book went through the roof. There was a very inexpensive edition available on Amazon and digital media, and suddenly we were on the New York Times bestseller list. I couldn’t believe it! They ran out of books, and printed a new edition…

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I have two books, one I’ve just finished and one about to be published.

One thing that’s happened to me as a result of working with Edith is that it clarified what’s paramount to me. I come out of the feminist movement…I began to write books about women, unlikely, ordinary people who experience a political awakening and take an important role in society….

The Commons is available on Amazon. It takes place 150 years in the future. It’s about a young girl who has a pleasant voice and becomes the Joan Baez of the revolution. The Commons is the name of a rock group. It’s soft science fiction, very different.

My newest book, The Pretty Part, is set right now. It’s about a woman who was a very minor actress, and she makes a marriage late in life that leads her to a huge moral crisis…

Even though it’s set now, and is about a sophisticated New York woman, they both are about women taking a role, rising to the occasion. That’s [how] I was inspired by Edith.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Something Edith said that stayed with me. Essentially five or six people helped her. She survived because of them. If five or six people had helped every Jew, there would have been no Holocaust. It’s something to think about…

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Susan Dworkin will be participating in The Lessans Family Annual Book Festival at the JCC of Greater Washington, which runs from Nov. 5-15, 2015.

Nov. 3

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Nov. 3, 1901: Andre Malraux born.

Q&A with John Kelly

John Kelly is the author of the new book Never Surrender: Winston Churchill and Britain's Decision to Fight Nazi Germany in the Fateful Summer of 1940. His other books include The Graves Are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People and The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time. He lives in New York City and Sandisfield, Massachusetts.

Q: Why did you decide to write a book focusing on Churchill and Britain in the summer of 1940?

A: I’ve been reading military history since the age of 10. This was a period that always fascinated me. It was romantic as hell, and was a time when everything was clear-cut. There was good and evil, and there was going to be either victory or defeat.

The elements were so clear, and everyone, high and low, knew what was at stake and the sacrifice that would be necessary. It was romantic in the old-fashioned sense of the word—almost ennobled.

One of Churchill’s geniuses was he created an atmosphere that summer that was almost like theater. His speeches made people feel a little braver, and they ended up rising to his [vision] of them.

I have reservations about Churchill as a strategist, but as a leader, he was unparalleled. In May 1940 it became clear that France was going to fall. British morale was terrible. He came in May 11 [as prime minister]. By July, people were unified behind him.

It was his speeches, and who he was. It wasn’t that he was trying to pander to them. He was an incredibly imposing public figure. People felt he was asking them to rise up to him. Everyone in the country felt, We have to rise to his standard.

Q: You begin the book with a look back at London in July 1919. Why did you decide to open with that particular time?

A: Never again. One million British soldiers were killed in World War I [and France suffered huge losses as well]. That left such a scar on both nations. It affected everything in the interwar period. Pacifism had a strong grip on the nation. That [description] was necessary to establish the hurdles that had to be overcome.

Scarcely a generation after the loss of one million people, how would you talk an antiwar public back into war? If, [as would happen,] Britain was going to lose all its wealth, its standing as a great power, and its empire?

There was a sense Britain was weakened in the Great War, and the empire had been destabilized. They knew, the upper classes knew, one more like that and it was over for Britain as a great power.

I felt a description of that period was necessary to give context. Plus it’s fun to write those types of scenes—parades, crowds.

Q: You write that “well into the spring of 1940, Britain’s war aims were kept vague and ill defined.” Why was that? What were some of the options under consideration at that point?

A: Churchill was not yet prime minister. Chamberlain was still prime minister. Until March, early April, he still believed in the original strategy: We are not going to have to fight a great land war against Germany. We are going to beat them by blockade, air power, that’s our strategy—and France will provide the ground troops; we will provide a token [number].

The term for that is limited liability. If Britain is going to commit itself to a war on the Continent, it should do its utmost to limit liability. If there’s fighting in the air and on the sea with few people on the ground, that’s limited liability.

Even when Churchill became prime minister, the amount of ground troops Britain put into the war was always low. In North Africa, they had the 8^th Army, 250-300,000 men. Maybe half a million in Italy.

It wasn’t until the Normandy invasion [in 1944] that Britain started putting a large ground army in. [Because of] their losses in World War I—they didn’t have a large supply of men.

The RAF had one million men—it barely existed in World War I…Even in 1944-45, [British strategy] was still control of the sea and control of the air. Those are the two least expensive ways to fight a war, although more than half the men in the bomber command were killed…

Q: What are some of the most common perceptions and misperceptions about Winston Churchill’s role during World War II?

A: …I have mixed feelings about Churchill. What he gave his country in the summer of 1940 was really great leadership. I don’t think he was a great strategist. In 1940-42, Britain was defeated everywhere. In North Africa, [German General Erwin] Rommel had half the men and half the tanks Britain had. It was a disastrous period, and as prime minister, Churchill was responsible for that.

By ’44, when the Allies invaded at D-Day…Roosevelt and Stalin were running the war. I don’t think after 1940 [Churchill] had a great war. He wanted to continue fighting in Italy rather than going [into] France, which made no sense. The quickest way to Berlin was through France.

[But] a great leader he was.

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Churchill and [British Foreign Secretary] Lord Halifax in 1940?

A: Tense. They were both respectful to one another. Churchill was in a politically vulnerable position that summer. He knew if Halifax resigned, and left the Cabinet, that could hurt him with the Conservative Party. A lot of the Conservative Party distrusted him…this all made him vulnerable to the leading members of his war cabinet…

As soon as he felt powerful enough, in December 1940, he got rid of Halifax and sent him to the U.S. as ambassador…

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: My portrait of Churchill—he’s shown more as a politician determined to get his way, and willing to be unscrupulous to get his way…I wanted to portray him more realistically, without the hagiography that usually surrounds him. 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Elisabeth Egan

Elisabeth Egan, photo by Beowulf Sheehan

Elisabeth Egan is the author of the new novel A Window Opens. She is the books editor at Glamour, and her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Self, Glamour, and The New York Times Book Review. She lives in New Jersey.

Q: Some reviews of your book have discussed the theme of "leaning in" as it relates to your main character, Alice, and her experiences balancing work and family. How do you see this issue, and were you thinking of Sheryl Sandberg's book as you wrote A Window Opens?

A: I was definitely thinking of Lean In when I started writing A Window Opens. I found her message so inspiring—but it made me wonder, what happens when there’s a complicating factor in your life—a sick parent, a kid who’s really struggling in school, a cross-country move—that temporarily sidelines your own ambition.

Of course, long before we were all leaning in, this was just called life. Things come up and you have to deal with them. You want to deal with them in some cases, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t committed to your career. I wanted to show how Alice navigated these rocky shoals, sometimes gracefully and often not-so-gracefully. 

Q: The novel explores the conflicts between traditional and newer methods of selling and reading books. What do you hope readers take away from Alice's situation?

A: I hope readers just take a moment to realize, we’re in this interesting moment where reading is concerned: we have all these options available to us (books on paper, books on a screen, books in serialized form, long-form journalism coming at us from multiple top-notch outlets)—and yet, the physical object of a book still matters. It still has a place in the world, and I think it always will.

I also think we’re lucky to have choices; my hope is, they’ll make us read more.

Q: How did you come up with the book's title, and what does it signify for you?

A: I’ve always loved the expression “When a door closes, a window opens,” and I knew I wanted an optimistic title, if that makes any sense.

When I happened upon this one, I was thinking of my first college roommate, who insisted I take the desk by the window because she knew I wanted to be a writer. Over the course of the next 20 years, whenever I lost my footing as a writer, I thought of the view from that window, and the faith of this stranger-turned-friend that I would someday make her gamble worthwhile. 

Q: How have things changed in the book review field over the years, and what do you see looking ahead?

A: I love how book reviews are less formal than they used to be—you can put a little more of your own voice and opinion into them, and you no longer have to hide behind this “expert voice.” You’re a human being writing about a book, and these are your thoughts. 

Looking ahead, I see more and more outlets for books coverage—hooray!

Q: What can you say about your next book?

A: My next book is about a long friendship, and it takes place on Long Beach Island, which is on the Jersey Shore. Can you think of a recent novel set on the Jersey Shore? Neither could I! 

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: A window really does open! I believe that.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Nov. 1

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Nov. 1, 1930: A.R. Gurney born.