|
Do the Math: A Novel of the Inevitable | 
| Author: Philip B Persinger
Publisher: iUniverse, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $11.29
You Save: $6.66 (37%)
New (15) Used (7) from $10.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 922370
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 268
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 0595469884
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780595469888
ASIN: 0595469884
Publication Date: April 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Brand New! Perfect Condition!
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
What could be worse than losing the love of your life? Getting her back! William Teale is a brilliant professor of mathematics. His theory of inevitability posits that any human action, no matter how insignificant, might result in a disproportionately huge calamity. His wife, Virginia "Faye" Warner, is a world-famous romance novelist who specializes in reuniting soul mates after a tragic and prolonged separation. According to her math, "one past and two hearts plus one love equals four-ever." The Teale-Warner marriage is a thing of geometric and artistic perfection, a melding of the heart and the brain-amour and algebra. But when Faye's ghostwriter suffers a nervous breakdown and shakes all the arrows out of Cupid's quiver, Faye reintroduces her husband to love. Unfortunately, it's not with herself, but with the woman William had loved and lost years ago. Love is about to clash with inevitability, and it's unclear which will emerge victorious. Told in the off-beat voice of William's graduate intern, Roger, Do the Math reveals the curious relationship between logic and love and the delightful consequences of taking a chance.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Chances Are.... August 26, 2008
Do real men read or even write romance? Yes! Philip Persinger in his first novel, "Do The Math" delights all readers with this charming and statistically calculated story of love and math. Although you'll find a multitude of formulas throughout this book, they are not in the form of your typical romance or what some may call a"chick lit" read. Persinger combines his love of numbers with a romance that was meant to be and comes up with the perfect equation for a refreshingly different book about romance that is not a "romance book", yet still romantic.
Told from the point of view of "Roger", an aspiring mathematician, the story revolves around William Teale, a once promising genius of Math who has seemed to have lost all will and motivation to continue his work on a complicated but important and ground breaking thesis. Married to world famous Romance Author Virginia Faye Warner, William has settled into an unlikely(think"Beauty and the Geek") but happy and comfortable marriage, and into his tedious existence of college Math professor. But things are getting a shake up or maybe even a wake up in William's world when after 25 years apart, a chance meeting with the love of his life renews his spirit for life.
Roger, his intern and confidant, is like a fly on the wall in the Warner-Teale household as he helps the professor search for his theory buried among the papers in their vast private library. He learns who is really responsible for the dozens of successful romance novels and what happens when the "ghost writer" is taken ill is the story within the story. Teale now romantically inclined, wants to help with the next novel the publisher and the public have been clamoring for. Teale's approach though is from the Mathematician's point of view. Figuring out the perfect formula for the next story is not the traditional boy meets girl scenarios for William, his is a thought process of theory and equations to boggle the mind. Will the results of his efforts work or is it just too complicated for Faye's fans? Is the story really his story of lost lost love, now found, and are we in for a happy ending? It is a good probability you will have a good time finding out.
Persinger's words flows wonderfully.There are substories that he skillfully brings full cirlce into the core story. The dialogue is snappy and very real. There are an array of supporting characters that will charm the socks of of you. A temperamental ghost writer, "Faye's" fan club of feisty older gals who you just don't want to mess with, and the group of math students who you can just picture walking around with their pencils and calculators sticking out of their shirt pockets. I have to admit though, there were times when I felt like a kindergartner walking in on a meeting of the high school Math club and got a little lost during the math discussions(but that is just me, I always kind of drifted off in the 3 years I had to take and retake Algebra). But honestly that is all part of the fun in this story that will have you smiling and maybe even laughing out loud.
So you won't find any scenes of intense passion or any of the usual suspects here. But a feel good and funny story about the story of romance - mathematically speaking of course! And by the way - the story of a chance meeting with the love of his life is a story the Author knows well! And chances are - you'll love it!
ADD this to your romance library and enjoy!...Laurie
 An unformulaic romance May 28, 2008
To its credit, Do the Math is not a novel of overblown passions. To be sure, there are momentary explosions, both of fire and of humor. But the strength of the novel lies in its tender, sympathetic portraits of the lonely and middle-aged trio at its core: William, a university professor (and former math prodigy) trying to do right by his wife, even if that means stifling his own happiness; Virginia, a romance novelist who, in her own fashion, is just as trapped as William; and Claire, the "other woman" who is flung by fate into the middle and who, perhaps not entirely unwillingly, is unable to extricate herself. Because these characters feel genuine, we care about their story, even if it does not involve the standard young hunks or ladies with heaving bosoms that lie at the heart of most romance tales.
So the fact that Do the Math does not rise to the extravagance of a typical romance novel (no pirates, for example, and the coma and hospital romance aren't what one might expect) does not detract from the novel at all. Rather, the book's unaffected elegance and overall good humor (combined with the charming narration by Roger, William's graduate student intern) more than carries the reader through. And given that the novel's primary conceit is to explore an ultimately unanswerable question -- whether true romance can be boiled down to a logical equation -- the fact that Do the Math nonetheless both satisfies and is satisfyingly unpredictable right through to the end is a testament to author Philip B. Persinger's achievement (and, perhaps, to how unimportant the question really is).
If love could only be so logical May 22, 2008
Thought all the characters were well developed and all of their personalities, were so well expressed that I found myself laughing out loud whenever the characters were involved in any type of group situation. I grew up in the area in which the novel is set and there was such great thought given to each of the details used to describe the towns and various landmarks, that I felt as if I was actually really there. Definitley, read this book if you are any type of hopless romantic.
Wonderful May 20, 2008
An original romp set in the bucolic Hudson River Valley that creates a fun collision between the unlikely worlds of romance writing, and academia. This book is about love, fate, and growing up.
Between prose and poetry April 29, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm in a reading group that focuses on writers' first novels. I was assigned to find something new (published in 2008) for the group. I never write book reviews, mostly because I can't. But this book is so terrific that I told myself that telling other people about it would be like my own humble offer of thanks to the author. This guy is GOOD. The dialogue is like sitting at the next booth in the diner and listening to other people talk. The descriptive parts are like photography. I blew through this book in a weekend and it only took me THAT long because I didn't want to let it end too quickly. I am going to watch for this guy's future works. I think I may have found the next Great One. Interested to hear others' review of this too.
|
|
|
Return to Math.com | |
