To Be a

This is an automathography, a mathematical biography written by its subject. It is definitely not a mathematics book, and, even more definitely, it is not the story of my origins and my life. Sure, I had parents (two), and wives (two, one at a time, the present one for forty years), and cats (eight, two at a time, the present two for three years). I had and have many faults, and, I'm pretty sure, a few virtues. I like Haydn, long walks, Nero Wolfe, and dark beer, and for a few years I tried TM. All that is true, but it's none of your business-that's not what this book is about.

An expert on the writing of constitutions argues that the path to a thriving society begins with forgetting about them: "Not James Madison but Bob Dylan or Annie Lennox should be our guide" (Mark Tushnet).