'The book is well-illustrated, earlier chapters with monochrome portraits of Mandelbrot, his family and those who influenced him, and later ones with striking colour pictures not only of the Mandelbrot set and other computer generated fractals, but also of aEURO~realaEURO (TM) fractals including cloud formations and rural and mountain scenes ... This celebration of MandelbrotaEURO (TM)s scientific life is largely based on interviews that the author had with him when making films on his work ... A challenge for historians of mathematics and science in coming years will be to produce a more broadly contextual and rounded account of the advent of fractals.'London Math SocietyThe time is right, following Benoit Mandelbrot's death in 2010, to publish this landmark book about the life and work of this maverick math genius.This compact book celebrates the life and achievements of Benoit Mandelbrot with the ideas of fractals presented in a way that can be understood by the interested lay-person. Mathematics is largely avoided. Instead, Mandelbrot's ideas and insights are described using a combination of intuition and pictures. The early part of the book is largely biographical, but it portrays well how Mandelbrot's life and ideas developed and led to the fractal notions that are surveyed in the latter parts of the book.

TIBOR JANUARY: A BIOGRAPHY TIBOR VASARHELYI was born in 1954 in Budapest. Early on in his life he developed a passion for drumming and later on played in several bands. After his father's death at the age of 12, he and his mother, Roza, emigrated to Israel. He served his three years in the army in the Military Police as a prison guard, throughout which his drumming continued but to make progress he decided to move to the UK. His efforts to succeed in the music business did not bear fruit and he learned to fly, later became an instructor and eventually qualified as a commercial airline pilot fulfilling this second dream and ending up as a Captain with Maersk Air and later on with bmibaby. He is married to Libby and they have a son called Jody. He changed his name to January. His life has been an extraordinary journey - exciting, rich and varied.

In the comic thriller 'Nothing and Everywhere' John Smith, an unpublished and regrettably named novelist, has his computer stolen and with it the only copy of his latest novel. Despite fear of his guru's disapproval, John mysteriously acquires two handguns, a load of cash and a crack team to reclaim his work. Together with Susie Bellavista, a beautiful and enigmatic maths genius, Biro, a Hungarian ex-RAF Regiment sergeant and March Klossowski, one-time activist and fellow-failed writer, John explores the power and wonder of mathematics in an attempt to solve an imponderable, real life mystery. Where will this whirlwind adventure lead? Back up your files and enjoy the ride

Fractals are the geometry of the natural world. They're about the broken, wrinkled, wiggly world- the uneven shapes of nature, unlike the idealised forms of Euclidean geometry. We see fractals everywhere; indeed, we are fractals ourselves. Fractal geometry is an extension of classical geometry which can make precise models of physical structures, from ferns to galaxies. It can describe the shape of a cloud as precisely as an architect can describe a house. Introducing Fractals traces the historical development of this mathematical discipline, explores its descriptive powers in the natural world, and then looks at the applications and the implications of the discoveries it has made. As John Archibald Wheeler, protege of Niels Bohr, friend of Albert Einstein and mentor of Richard Feynman has said, 'No one will be considered scientifically literate tomorrow, who is not familiar with fractals.'