As the children get older it is highly efficient to buy smart presents for oneself but make a play of bestowing them on the progeny.

Such as, for example, the remarkable ‘graphic novel’ Logicomix:

Rush off and buy it with your remaining Christmas money. Now.

It is the long, wry, subtle yet fascinating story of the interplay between key philosophers (notably Russell and Wittgenstein) as they grappled with some of the deepest questions of logic and mathematics:

  • is 1 + 1 = 2 saying something universally significant, or is it a trite tautology?
  • is infinity a misconceived idea?
  • is the world made up of facts or objects?
  • is Logic a branch of Mathematics, or Mathematics a branch of Logic?
  • is Mathematics not far from mysticism
  • and, most importantly, how if at all can Pure Reason be applied to human affairs?

The book takes us through the ebb and flow of arguments and the lives of the key thinkers, setting it all against the background of Russell being pressed to say whether it was ‘right’ for Americans to go to war against Hitler.

And if all that were not enough to digest after a large slice of Christmas cake, it ends with an account of the Oresteia, the trilogy from ancient Greece, in which the extreme rationality of justice and mercy is explored in gory detail.

The point (I think!) is that to avoid a tortured road to melancholy or madness, ‘objective’ logic needs to stay rooted in ‘subjective’ yet honest human experience. Something for conservatives and liberals alike to mull on in 2010?  

A towering achievement, beautifully drawn and presented. 

And if that is not enough, get this one too: 

A superbly readable account of the history of mathematics, simply explained with glorious illustrations. Marvel at how brilliant people centuries ago scratching away on parchment by candle-light identified the rules which allow us to construct our world.

The point about books like this is that you feel a lot smarter for a few hours after having read them, even if most of it is just too darn difficult.