A tiny autobiography
I grew up in Potomac, Maryland, which is characterized by having many big movie theaters you can drive to but none you can walk to. My parents are statisticians and can be read about here and here. My sister is a veterinarian in West Palm Beach; if you happen to have a sick horse in South Florida I highly recommend contacting her. While I lived in Potomac I spent a lot of time working math problems, writing small ironic stories, and listening to rock music made by depressed people.
After a while I went to Harvard, where I continued all three activities. The math problems became somewhat harder. I graduated from college in 1993, and then spent a year studying fiction writing at Johns Hopkins. I found that I missed working math problems, so I went back to Harvard and got a Ph.D. While there, I met Tanya Schlam, who is a very wonderful person, but who does not have a home page. If you want to know more about her you will have to come visit us; after many years in New Jersey we now live in Madison, where I'm a math professor at the University of Wisconsin.
Another wonderful person who now lives with us, as of September 15, 2005, is Caleb Jacob Schlam Ellenberg.
The Grasshopper King
A long time ago I wrote a novel called The Grasshopper King, which was published by Coffee House Press in 2003.
Slate
I am writing an occasional column called "Do the Math" for the on-line magazine Slate. You can see my columns here. I have also written for The Believer (on the Riemann hypothesis and mountain climbing ), the Washington Post, and SEED.
Lists
A list of underappreciated Baltimore Orioles.
What am I reading?
1 May 2008Look to Windward, by Iain M. Banks.
20 Apr 2008:One to Nine, by Andrew Hodges.
24 Mar 2008:Fiasco, by Thomas Ricks.
16 Mar 2008:Bay of Souls, by Robert Stone.
12 Feb 2008:Runaway, by Alice Munro.
1 Feb 2008:n+1, issue 6.
15 Jan 2008:Postville, by Stephen G. Bloom.
30 Dec 2007:Holy Land, by D.J. Waldie.
27 Dec 2007:About Schmidt, by Louis Begley.
10 Dec 2007:The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth.
18 Nov 2007:Imperial Life in the Emerald City, by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.
30 Sep 2007:Doolittle, by Ben Sisario.
28 Sep 2007:Turkish Short Stories, by Aziz Nesin.
25 Sep 2007: How to Pick a Peach, by Russ Parsons.
1 Sep 2007: On Beauty, by Zadie Smith.
31 Jul 2007: My Petition for More Space, by John Hersey.
28 Jul 2007: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling.
21 Jul 2007: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling.
10 Jul 2007: The Child Worshipers, by Martha Weinman Lear.
8 Jun 2007: Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman.
29 May 2007: My Holocaust, by Tova Reich.
23 May 2007: Men and Cartoons, by Jonathan Lethem.
2 Apr 2007: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy.
20 Mar 2007: The Green Futures of Tycho, by William Sleator.
15 Mar 2007: Indoctrinaire, by Christopher Priest.
2 Feb 2007: The Silent Woman, by Janet Malcolm.
24 Dec 2006: Material World, by Peter Menzel.
2 Oct 2006: In the Shadow of the Law, by Kermit Roosevelt.
1 Oct 2006: A Sport of Nature, by Nadine Gordimer.
24 Sep 2006: Veronica, by Mary Gaitskill.
18 Sep 2006: Promiscuities, by Naomi Wolf.
7 Sep 2006: Hothouse Kids, by Alissa Quart.
12 Aug 2006: The Last Universe, by William Sleator.
4 Aug 2006: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K.Rowling.
31 Jul 2006: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K.Rowling.
28 Jul 2006: Fray, by Joss Whedon.
13 Jul 2006: Home Land, by Sam Lipsyte.
4 Jul 2006: Rationale of the Dirty Joke, by Gershon Legman.
26 May 2006: Rip It Up And Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984, by Simon Reynolds.
22 May 2006: Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson.
17 May 2006: The Dark Tower, by Stephen King.
22 Apr 2006: Old Friends, by Stephen Dixon.
19 Apr 2006: Woodrow Wilson and the Politics of Morality, by John Morton Blum.
2 Apr 2006: The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank, by David Plotz.
27 Mar 2006: Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century, by Laura Shapiro.
19 Mar 2006: Song of Susannah, by Stephen King.
15 Mar 2006: Please Don't Come Back from the Moon, by Dean Bakopolous.
28 Feb 2006: I Love You More Than You Know, by Jonathan Ames.
23 Feb 2006: Canaan's Tongue, by John Wray.
20 Feb 2006: Waterloo, by Karen Olsson.
17 Feb 2006: Wolves of the Calla, by Stephen King.
10 Feb 2006: Josie and Jack, by Kelly Braffet.
7 Feb 2006: True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey.
What was I reading in previous years?
Food
Book reviews and articles
While I was in graduate school, I reviewed books and wrote articles for the Boston Book Review and the Boston Phoenix.
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