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Mathematicians and quiltmakers share a preoccupation: the regular division
of the plane. One of the wittiest exemplars of the technique was M. C. Escher.
His puzzling drawings still fascinate, showing trails of people ascending
and descending endless stairs or ants trapped as they march around a Mobius
strip. Now you can buy The Pop-Up Book of M. C. Escher (Pomegranate Europe,
pp 12, £16.95), which reveals many of the visual tricks of Escher’s
trade, although retaining as he intended ‘a certain mysteriousness that
does not immediately hit the eye’.