Old math professor friends of ours recommended this book, and my husband, a mathematician, greatly enjoyed it and recommended it to me. Though I'm DEFINITELY not a mathematician, I found Budiansky's description of the math community in Vienna and the more general historical context of that region of Europe extremely interesting. I hadn't expected to learn about the seeds planted for the rise of anti-Semitism and the Nazis, but the historical context he describes makes it quite the next logical step (unfortunately) for the horrors that followed. Reading about Godel's own struggles with mental health I also found interesting and tragic. To have achieved so much and yet to struggle with self-worth. The problem of self-worth and how it can infect and affect the course of one's life. I can relate.