February’s Book of the Month is: The Story of a Number by Eli Manor. First published in 1993 and available in paperback in the Princeton Science Library.
From the “Goodreads” website. See here for more details.
“…. Geared to the reader with only a modest background in mathematics, the book describes the story of e from a human as well as a mathematical perspective. In a sense, it is the story of an entire period in the history of mathematics, from the early seventeenth to the late nineteenth century, with the invention of calculus at its center. Many of the players who took part in this story are here brought to life. …. The unifying theme throughout the book is the idea that a single number can tie together so many different aspects of mathematics …. The book ends with an account of the discovery of transcendental numbers ….”