Imagine a giant snowflake in 196,884 dimensions... This is the story of a mathematical quest that began two hundred years ago in revolutionary France, led to the biggest collaboration ever between mathematicians across the world, and revealed the 'Monster' - not monstrous at all, but a structure of exquisite beauty and complexity. Told here for the first time in accessible prose, it is a story that involves brilliant yet tragic characters, curious number 'coincidences' that led to breakthroughs in the mathematics of symmetry, and strange crystals that reach into many dimensions. And it is a story that is not yet over, for we have yet to understand the deep significance of the Monster - and its tantalizing hints of connections with the physical structure of spacetime. Once we understand the full nature of the Monster, we may well have revealed a whole new and deeper understanding of the nature of our Universe.

In mathematics, "buildings" are geometric structures that represent groups of Lie type over an arbitrary field. This concept is critical to physicists and mathematicians working in discrete mathematics, simple groups, and algebraic group theory, to name just a few areas. Almost twenty years after its original publication, Mark Ronan's "Lectures on Buildings "remains one of the best introductory texts on the subject. A thorough, concise introduction to mathematical buildings, it contains problem sets and an excellent bibliography that will prove invaluable to students new to the field. "Lectures on Buildings "will find a grateful audience among those doing research or teaching courses on Lie-type groups, on finite groups, or on discrete groups. "Ronan's account of the classification of affine buildings is] both interesting and stimulating, and his book is highly recommended to those who already have some knowledge and enthusiasm for the theory of buildings."--"Bulletin of the London Mathematical Society"