Johnny Ball has been a well-loved name in mathematics for many years.

Wonders Beyond Numbers is his magnum opus, and his first book for more than ten years. It is nothing less than the history of mathematics; he describes it as 'a summation of my career as an enthusiast for mathematics'. It will help spark (or re-spark) the reader's love of maths in its many facets.

The scope of the book is breathtaking. Running in something approaching chronological order, it shows that every breakthrough in maths represents a single step forward, resting on the work of others, and it brings to life the importance of numbers, shapes and patterns in the world around us.

As an indication of coverage, early chapters in the book will be looking at Egyptian binary maths, Thales's angular measurements, Sumer and base 60, Pythagoras and the maths of music, Plato and Euclid, Archimedes and hydrostatics, Pi and circular maths, areas and volumes, Diophantus and algebra, measuring the Earth, Quipo maths in Peru, Mayan maths and base 20, the discovery of zero, Chinese maths, negative numbers, Pascal's triangle and Al Khwarizmi's algebra. That takes us up to the early Middle Ages.

It's all-encompassing, yet written in a light and reader-friendly fashion, and filled with diagrams to help explain the maths. Dotted throughout will be anecdotes and stories from Johnny's life and mathematical adventures, both in front of the camera and in the real world, too. This book's a gem.