this is practical, efficient arithmetic. if you take the time to master Dr. Benjamin's left -> right method for addition, subtraction and multiplication then while someone else is digging out their calculator, opening it, turning it on, and entering the problem (maybe incorrectly) you've already checked the answer in your head and moved on.

the division simplification and square root estimation (uncannily accurate) methods are also excellent.

one thing could be better. his treatment of mod sum checking falls short. if you reduce down to 1 digit as you go and ignore all 9's both in number and in all interim sums, then mod sum checking gets slick fast and it's easier to add that function to your mental calculator. also he doesn't mention mod sum checking of division. you can do it, but not by dividing.

modsum (quotient) X modsum (divisor) = modsum (dividend - remainder)

before i found this book, i spent alot of time with the Trachtenberg method. i just couldn't see what all the fuss was about. it seemed hoakey to me. now i know why. compared to this, it IS hoakey.

Nice book. My son and I are both enjoying it a lot. I hope it sticks, I surely need it.

I've never been good at math, but a couple years ago, I began to love Calculus and ended up taking Calc 1, 2 & 3. However, the only thing that was slowing me down was the simple arithmetic and mental calculations that I was so bad at doing. A friend recommended this book to me after I told her that my slow mental math was the reason I kept running out of time on the MCAT Physical Sciences section. I got this book two weeks ago and I've already increased my MCAT score by two whole points. This book is amazing and can really change your life. Do yourself a favor and buy it.

Thanks Dr. Benjamin!

I've never been good at math, but a couple years ago, I began to love Calculus and ended up taking Calc 1, 2 & 3. However, the only thing that was slowing me down was the simple arithmetic and mental calculations that I was so bad at doing. A friend recommended this book to me after I told her that my slow mental math was the reason I kept running out of time on the MCAT Physical Sciences section. I got this book two weeks ago and I've already increased my MCAT score by two whole points. This book is amazing and can really change your life. Do yourself a favor and buy it.

Thanks Dr. Benjamin!

This is a great book with lots of helpful hints at how to do mental math. My daughter wanted the book, and she is learning the material quickly.

I am not a big fan of math but I thought I give it a try. Since I have the book, I am practicing on frequent bases and the tricks really work. Beside many hours of calculation practice the book also provides some nice stories about different lightning calculators.

It's fascinating to learn ways to easily and quickly get answers to spur-of-the-moment mathematical calculations without the need for pencil and paper. Besides a I-wonder-why-this-wasn't-taught-in-school reverse technique for mentally, quickly and easily adding, subtracting and multiplying, it's especially neat to be able to determine the day of the week for any calendar date in any century! The author shows how and makes it simple. The techniques work better for those who know well their multiplication tables and their sums. If one doesn't, getting answers is doable but takes longer.

This book is great! This book teaches you tricks that really work and really makes you wonder how people came up with them.

One thing I wanted to reccommend - Although this book is for mental math, going through it, I always kept a pencil and paper by my side - some of the concepts/tricks were a little abstract to simply read and absorb the first time around, so they needed a couple of examples (on paper) to solidify the 'trick' for me. After I worked out a couple of problems on pen and paper, I was able to grasp the ability to do them mentally.

One of the best things this book teaches is guesstimation and more importantly, how to forumulate your 'guesses' so you are not so far off from target. I had been doing guesstimation for ages but the methods mentioned in the book were pretty good guidelines for my future guesses.

This book is a must have for anyone that is afraid of numbers because these simple tricks will make difficult math problems a little easier to deal with. The time saving techniques this book is filled with can shave seconds off of your problem solving skills which, come test time (math test, SAT, any test which involves math), you'll be thinking about this book and thanking the author.

I recently purchased this book after a stranger in a bookstore suggested it. I'm already impressed. There are quite a few 'speed math' books out there, but this one is easily accessible to everyone and is intended to help with everyday life. I'm fairly advanced in college-level math and I intuitively knew some of the suggestions in the book, but it has helped me brush up, learn new things, and most of all learn how to do it BETTER.

I highly recommend this book to students because it is a tremendous help to know how to perform quick math in your head. Even if you have a calculator, just knowing what to expect for the outcome helps you perform faster and serves as a double-check when you need it. And knowing how to do math quickly is essential on a standardized test like the SAT. Even if you know how to do all the problems correctly, the time limit can cripple you--so do yourself a favor and get this book.

Some of the topics covered in this book include 'basic' to 'advanced' multiplication, mental division, guesstimation, calculating the day of the week, and memorizing numbers through mnemonics.

This book is very well written. I have always done well in math classes. I never really enjoyed mathematics though. This book makes what seems impossible possible. If you ever wanted to be able to square a number like 72 in your head in seconds this is the book for you.

I'm neither interested in squaring three-digit numbers in my head nor in doing mathematical magic. I'm only interested in practical mental math. I did buy this book for chapter 5; *** Good Enough; The Art of 'Guesstimation' ***. I've been doing guesstimations for many years intuitively, not very structured. This fine chapter teaches beginners the art of guesstimation while experts can go back to the basics and hone their skills while they might discover something new ... I did do so with approximating years needed for trippling an investment given interest rates of X% p.a.

I have always been good at math, but I still found a lot of the tricks in this book new and handy. Most of these tricks don't require that you are good at math - my husband was even able to do them!

I am an elementary school teacher and I highly recommend this book for anyone who has learned their basic math concepts. It is fantastic! The authors provide new insights into the mathmatical world by making the reader feel and become mathamagicians. It uncovers a world of fun within our world of numbers. It is for young and old alike. No one is too set in their ways to find the magic within its pages:)

If you have a chance to see Art Benjamin in action, DO IT!!! He is very entertaining, great with the audience, and quite a showman! On top of that, his facility with numbers is awesome! This book details his "secrets"!!!
(Although he does not divulge how he does the invisible card trick!!!) ;->

Great, concise, and helpful book. Plenty of examples, clear cut explanations, and fun exercises made reading this book a worthwhile endeavor. I recommend it to anyone to help brush up math skills and learn newer and better ways of solving math problems.

I am a professional SAT/GRE teacher and tutor, achieving an 800 in the GRE math section. After telling many students that the secret to the math section is mental math and approximation, I decided to see what books were available. I saw that this one had good reviews and ever since then I have been bringing the book to all my classes and tutoring sessions. I recommend this book for those who never felt they got the hang of math as well as people who love it like I do. It is clearly written, very encouraging and has lots of drills.
I love this book and I think that it really will help people feel more confident when they take a test or just are trying to figure the tip.

I am a professional SAT/GRE teacher and tutor, achieving an 800 in the GRE math section. After telling many students that the secret to the math section is mental math and approximation, I decided to see what books were available. I saw that this one had good reviews and ever since then I have been bringing the book to all my classes and tutoring sessions. I recommend this book for those who never felt they got the hang of math as well as people who love it like I do. It is clearly written, very encouraging and has lots of drills.
I love this book and I think that it really will help people feel more confident when they take a test or just are trying to figure the tip.

I bought a copy of Secrets of Mental Maths. As a trained scientist and a professional magician I was interested in the contents, and was not disappointed. Great stuff here for impressing people, and useful techniques for making maths fun. However the Amazon website offered two books togehter - this book and another by the same authors; Think Like A Maths Genius. I ordered both, and was shocked when they were delivered. The second book (Think Like A Maths Genius) was just Secrets of Mental Maths with a different cover. Amazon should have known both were the same book and should not have offered them both together. Don't be caught out by this. That aside, I highly recommend buying one or other version of this book.

Loved this book... it is very entertaining and teaches a lot of good concepts.
A lot of the techniques are not original. But they have been put together very nicely in this book. I bought the other book by Arthur on the same topic (Mathemagics: How to Look Like a Genius Without Really Trying ) and found that a very good addition to my math books. The current book is a much enhanced and cleaned up version of that.
I do part time teaching on Math to High School students and use this book for some good ideas...

While the author seems to be a very good "stage mathematician" and a lot of his explanations try to explain the "show" aspect of the tricks, for a more complete collection of math tricks, I also refer to book by Meyer.

Very recommneded for Math enthusiasts and more for High School students.

My daughter had always loved math but from last year she became bored by the math curriculum her school uses. I purchased this book and after only four chapters she's engrossed in math again! She loves the tricks and voluntarily makes up her own problems to solve. She's already seeing how the techniques help her in her normal math work. She is now probably the top math student in her class. In the Beestar online math tests [...], she is ranked high in the honor roll. I'm very pleased with this book. It makes math fun to my daughter again!

By far the best book on mental math ever written.

At first glance, this book could easily be overlooked and dismissed as another "just buy this book and follow my easy steps to becoming a (genius, millionaire, happier person, psychic, master gardener, whatever)" that would utimately leave you disappointed that you couldn't do it.

Well, this book is not that. It gets right to the point. It's very well written. It's fun. It's practical. And as long as you take your time to mentally practice what you're learning along the way, you can and should be able to master the techniques in this book. You needn't have any mathematical expertise going in. Of course, the author doesn't promise anything special about what you can do with these abilities, although there are some practical applications suggested along the way. All I can say is that it's fun and gives you something interesting to do with your brain when you're bored. And certainly if you like Math already or are a Math teacher, it can be tremendously helpful.

Arthur Benjamin wrote the main content of the book, and Michael Shermer (Skeptic Magazine founder and Scientific American columnist) wrote introductory and closing chapters. These seem a little out of place to me, but they're certainly very good and useful general information about critical thinking. In addition to Bill Nye's (The Science Guy) new intro, James Randi's (famous magician and skeptic) introduction from an earlier edition is included.