"I am struggling to think who would want to read this book" (2025)
In a 2025 Substack essay, mathematician David Bessis discusses self-doubt about his book's audience, reflecting on the creative struggle of writing for an uncertain readership and the vulnerability inherent in sharing intellectual work.
Background
- David Bessis is a mathematician and author of the forthcoming book *I Am Struggling to Think Who Would Want to Read This Book* — the article is his reflection on the paradox of writing for a general audience when his own intellectual passions are highly specialized.
- The piece sits in a tradition of mathematician-writers (e.g., Paul Lockhart, G. H. Hardy) who wrestle with the gap between pure mathematics and public understanding. Bessis's previous book, *Mathematica*, was an attempt to communicate mathematical intuition.
- The title is deliberately provocative, gesturing at the common anxiety among academics: that the very things that fascinate them are too niche, too technical, or too strange to interest anyone outside their field.
- Bessis uses this tension to argue that this very struggle — writing for an imagined reader who may not exist — is a productive creative constraint, forcing the writer to clarify and re-examine their own ideas.
- The article is relevant to broader debates in tech and intellectual culture about expertise, communication, and the "explainer" industry: who deserves to have complex ideas made accessible, and what gets lost in translation.