The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa

This book is short and very sweet. On the one hand it is a book full of math. The professor is a professor of number theory. He has been in a car accident and sustained a head injury which leaves him unable to work and in need of full time care, but he is still a mathematician. Numbers are a fundamental building block of our universe; and number theory is about discerning the fundamental truths about numbers. Numbers are both a motif throughout the novel as well as a way for the professor to relate to his housekeeper. She is more than willing to meet him where he is at, and to learn from him. She takes him seriously, and she cares for him. For a math professor with an eighty minute memory, his only tangible connection to the world around him is numbers. Numbers are how he managed to find meaning in a world that only exists for eighty minutes, and it is how he makes connections with people he does not remember and will not remember. The housekeeper and the professor treat mathematics and numbers, as well as life in all it's meaning, with all of the beauty and reverence they deserve.