Rating: 
Summary: Inspiring peek at an exceptional mathematician
Review: This book should be required reading for anyone who is currently studying mathematics, but I would also highly recommend it for anyone remotely intrigued by the magic of numbers. As a math major I have at times grown weary of slogging through theorem after theorem, but I picked up Hoffman's book for a little summer reading, and was immediately captivated. My awe of the beauty of mathematics was totally resuscitated from the third year slump to which it had fallen victim. I was at turns amused, educated, inspired and touched. Hoffman deftly interlaces anecdotes about Paul Erdos with tales of some of the finest mathematical minds, and many of their most important discoveries. This is not just a mere biography of a great mathematician, and those who approach it as such will miss the whole point. It is not only about Paul Erdos but about "the search for mathematical truth", the tragedy of failure as well as the ecstasy of the perfect proof, "straight from the Book". Mathematics was Erdos' life. To separate him from the body of knowledge that he embraced and spent his life furthering would be a complete disservice, and would give only a fraction of his story.
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Summary: This book is horrible.
Review: I bought this book to learn more about the life and work of Paul Erdos. I expected a biography. Instead, I found an appalling amount of filler. Anecdotes not about Erdos, as I expected from the reviews but cliched anecdotes about famous figures in the history of mathematics. Why does the author bore us with this? Who amongst his readers hasn't already heard these well-worn stories before? Though the author claims to have interviewed him extensively, I almost doubt it. This book places uneven weight on certain periods of his life, seemingly for no other reason than that he didn't bother to do thorough research. Definitely the worst scientist-biography I've read (And I've read many.) I still want to know more about Erdos. I am left with a very incomplete image. I am hoping that the competing biography, "My Brain is Open" will be a bit better.
Rating: 
Summary: Adventures of another curious character
Review: Like the life of the famous physicist, Richard Feynmen, the life of Paul Erdos is not only captivating and amusing, but inspiring. I was a math major in college before getting sidetracked by computers 20 years ago, but my main interest in the Erdos story is not for the mathematical slant, but the personal story a truly 'strange dude'. If you like learning about smart and weird people this book should be high on your list of future acquisitions. RATINGS: 5 stars for strangeness; 4 stars for writing; 5 stars for inspiring me with a renewed interest in math.
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Summary: The Absent Minded Professor
Review: Paul Erdos was the epitome of the absent minded professor. Paul Hoffman's book reads more like a series of anecdotes related by friends than a "true" biography. It is an enjoyable quick read.
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Summary: Math is a group thing.
Review: This book did a good job expressing the idea that people work better together when trying to come up with mathematical ideas. The parts of the book that were about Paul were interesting but the parts that were not were really interesting. I especially liked the parts about Gauss. If you buy the book, you will not be disappointed.
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Summary: A little gem, like Hardy's "A Mathematician's Apology"
Review: This book caused me to laugh and smile and laugh again. I felt the author had given me a small gift that made me a rich man. I was sure after reading the first few pages that the amusing anecdotes would thin out like primes as one got further and further into the higher numbered pages. But the pace is sustained throughout and a rich picture of Erdos, his expansive generosity, and his world, emerges. We often think of mathematicians as socially inept creatures who isolate themselves in pursuit of their profession. However, while Erdos certainly exemplifies the absent-minded intellect at odds with the physical world, Hoffman also reveals how he brought people together, nurtured the young, comforted the old, and gave of himself to mathematics, for sure, but at the same time, to other human beings. Not only was his brain open, but also his heart.I noticed that when Hoffman quotes Russell's autobiography to explain the liar paradox, the example is faulty (pp. 115-116). I should check the quotation, as it is surprising that Russell would make a slip like this. If a piece of paper says on one side, "The other side is false" and says the same on the other side, we can assign one side the value "True", while we assign the other side the value "False" and there would be no contradiction.
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece.
Review: This is a great book. Not only does Paul Erdos come alive as the eccentric mathematician he was. But the book brilliantly weaves in great episodes and great other moments from the history of mathematics. I read the book twice I liked it so much.
Rating: 
Summary: "Lazy River" Review was Correct
Review: I concur with the previous review that called the book a meandering, lazy river journey. This book is disappointing if you are looking for a true biography of Paul Erdos. I felt like I was reading an extended magazine article that had a lot of padding and tangential information.
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Summary: A Meandering, Lazy River through the Mathematical Forest
Review: This was a somewhat frustrating experience for someone interested in learning more of the life of Paul Erdos. At the end of it, you feel acquainted with his quirky turns of phrase (bosses, slaves, epsilons, Sam & Joe, the great SF) but why did he engage himself with certain types of mathematics (prime numbers) and not others, what did he struggle with as he grew up, what shaped him into the memorable yet odd-ball mathematician that he became. All of these topics are brushed over lightly as Hoffman takes another digression into the life of Ron Graham, or the life of Fermat and the nature of his Last Theorem. I can't help but feel that this book was cut and pasted together from multiple, barely related writings of Hoffman until the requisite number of pages was reached to satisfy the needs of the publisher. Disappointing.
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Summary: I read it for pleasure but it compelled me to take notes.
Review: This book is full of neat math stuff woven into a story about a man so unique that I had to wonder if he and I could be of the same species. The Goldbach conjecture on p 36, the Chebyshev proof on p 37 and Ramsey theory on p 51 are worth reading for anyone even a little interested in math. I learned about twin primes, proper divisors, friendly numbers (what a nice surprise) and perfect numbers. Then highly composite numbers "which [are] as dissimilar to a prime as a number can be" were used to define round numbers (another surprise) which in turn connected prime number theory to probability theory. WOW! There are great quotes from other great minds (Einstein, Feynman) sprinkled throughout. I found myself reading the book increasingly slowly towards the end hoping that if I read half as much each day as the day before that I would never reach the end.
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