You might think: what would a science writer living in Baltimore know about how to present the life of a South Indian mathematical genius who traveled to England from India in the early 1900s.

You might think: how would anyone understand the psyche and the drives behind a person who was born into a demon-haunted late 19th century and was so enamoured with mathematics that he left to go to a completely alien place where even the food was not palatable.

You might think: perhaps this biography of Ramanujan will ignore his own story to concentrate on the more accessible lives of the famous Cambridge mathematicians like Hardy.

You might think: how can anyone make us understand why Ramanujan eventually died at an early age succumbing to tuberculosis; remaining a vegetarian in war-torn England even when he was consumed by malnutrition.

Well, think again.

This book is a tour-de-force in science writing. It is amazingly detailed in every aspect and Kanigel could not have done a better job if he was channeling Ramanujan himself. Kanigel is obviously fond of Ramanujan having spent so much time documenting his life, but he also has the necessary external point of view in many places which makes you thankful that this is not a mere hagiographic survey.

The math is dumbed down a bit as is necessary for a mass market book like this. However, the explanations of Ramanujan's math exploits are usually done well. At least interesting stories are not eliminated altogether because the math was be too hard to explain.

Here is one (non-mathematical) story from the book:
    "Even the prevalence of body odours among the English mystified him -- until, the story goes, one day he was enlightened about it at a tea party. A woman was complaining that the problem with the working classes was that they failed to bathe enough, sometimes not even once a week. Seeing disgust writ large on Ramanujan's face, she moved to reassure him that the Englishmen he met were sure to bathe daily. "You mean," he asked, "you bathe only once a day?"