Books
Retired Wayne State University English professor Elizabeth S. Sklar and I coedited a book on mathematics in popular culture. It can be a fun read for those interested in math or movies, and also is appropriate for use as a textbook in first-year seminars or other courses. From the publisher's site:
Mathematics has maintained a surprising presence in popular media for over a century. In recent years, the movies Good Will Hunting, A Beautiful Mind, and Stand and Deliver, the stage plays Breaking the Code and Proof, the novella Flatland and the hugely successful television crime series NUMB3RS all weave mathematics prominently into their storylines. Less obvious but pivotal references to the subject appear in the blockbuster TV show Lost, the cult movie The Princess Bride, and even Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In this collection of new essays, contributors consider the role of math in everything from films, baseball, crossword puzzles, fantasy role-playing games, and television shows to science fiction tales, award-winning plays and classic works of literature. Revealing the broad range of intersections between mathematics and mainstream culture, this collection demonstrates that even "mass entertainment” can have a hidden depth.
You can purchase the book in paperback or Kindle form from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, our publisher, McFarland, or other sites.
I've also written an open-source first-semester abstract algebra textbook, First-Semester Abstract Algebra: A Structural Approach. It is specifically designed to suit a single-semester introductory abstract course, rather than to be a comprehensive reference source. The book is written in PreTeXt and copyrighted under a GNU Free Documentation License (v. 1.3). If you want to use it for a course, feel free to do so under the terms of the license; you can access it in HTML form by clicking on its title (above), and you may email me at sklarjk@plu.edu if you wish to obtain a copy of it as a PDF. You can also purchase a hard copy of the book from Lulu. Finally, if you would like to have my PreTeXt files so you can adapt them for your own needs, you may clone them from the GitHub repository sklarjk/aaptx. The book is an evolving text, so if you find errors or have suggestions, please let me know.