Best Books About Fibonacci for Adults
I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time in my professional life writing articles about the mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci. Most of those pieces were for math magazines aimed at kids. (I was working at Scholastic when I sold my children’s book about Fibonacci.) Then, many years ago, when I was living in Italy, I wrote about Fibonacci for a short-lived daily newsletter on Italian life and culture. Both the editor and I were astonished by the response to that tiny story. Either people had never heard of Fibonacci, the Sequence, or the Numbers. Or they knew the name from the world of investing, but did not know about Leonardo himself. That taught me a lesson: Fibonacci’s story is amazing enough to interest adults as well.
Yes, parents, teachers, and librarians would definitely benefit from learning about this man’s life, especially if they are thinking of sharing the math behind the Fibonacci Sequence with kids. But the rest of us grown-ups can, too. To that end, this quick post recommends three Fibonacci books that adults might enjoy.
Let me confess straight up that I personally I am not interested in Fibonacci investing, so none of these books attack the topic from that perspective. I am solely interested in how a medieval mathematician brought Hindu-Arabic numbers to the Western world. That’s where I’m coming from.
A few years ago I wrote a long post for this site that shared all my Fibonacci book recommendations…for kids, grownups, and serious math geeks. That post ended up being very long, so my 2025 strategy is to split that post up.
Here’s the whole series at a glance:
Part I: Best Books about Fibonacci for Kids
Part II: Best Books about Fibonacci for Adults (the post you are reading)
Part III: Best Books about Fibonacci for Serious Math Geeks (aka Mathematicians)
And if you must, my original list lives here.
First up: These are all affiliate links, so I may earn a commission at no cost to you if you buy anything I’ve recommended.
Please note that some of these books may be out of print, and thus somewhat difficult to find. Academic books tend to fall in this category. If the link is dimmed, that I means I had no success finding a quick, easy way to buy that particular book online. But I’m listing the title anyway in the hopes that I’ll be able to find one in the future.
Don’t despair if the one you want isn’t immediately available. I have great luck locating used and rare books on the following sites: Biblio, Bookfinder, Alibris, Abebooks, and even eBay.
You just have to poke around until you find a copy at a reasonable price.
Joe D’Agnese’s Ever-Evolving Fibonacci Bibliography
Might as well start with my book. Click the image to learn more.
Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci
By Joseph D’Agnese, illus. by John O’Brien. (Holt, 2010) ISBN: 0805063056
Korean version
DVD
Books for Adults
Devlin is NPR’s math guy. His books are excellent entry points to the topic. If you want a readable survey of the mathematician and his numbers, start here.
The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci’s Arithmetic Revolution
By Keith Devlin (Walker Books, 2011) ISBN: 978-1408815762
In this second book, Devlin travels to Italy and beyond in search of the historic Fibonacci.
Finding Fibonacci: The Quest to Rediscover the Forgotten Mathematical Genius Who Changed the World
By Keith Devlin (Princeton University Press, 2017) ISBN: 978-0691174860
This one feels like a textbook, but it has stood the test of time, and neatly explains how Fibonacci numbers appear in nature.
The Fabulous Fibonacci Numbers
By Alfred S. Posamentier and Ingmar Lehmann (Prometheus, 2023) ISBN: 978-1633889064
Thanks for checking these out! Here’s my own book again with some other online retailer links…
The book is available only in a print version. No ebook version, I’m afraid.
BUY BLOCKHEAD: THE LIFE OF FIBONACCI
Hardcover: Bookshop | Amazon | B&N | Books-A-Million |
Autographed: Malaprop’s
