Longlisted for the BSHS Hughes Prize 2021A New Year’s Present from a Mathematician is an exciting book dedicated to two questions: What is it that mathematicians do? And who gets to be called a ‘mathematician’ and why? This book seeks to answer these questions through a series of stories ranging from the beginning of modern mathematics through to the 20th century but not in a usual chronological manner. The author weaves her story around major questions concerning nature of mathematics and links