Of my five favourite graphic novels of the year, two (Stitches by David Small and Grandville by Bryan Talbot) were recently reviewed, leaving three to particularly recommend here. The first is Logicomix (Bloomsbury, £16.99; Buy this book), written by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou and sensationally drawn by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna. It is being described as a book on the foundational quest, in the first three decades of the 20th century, for logically impeccable rules of mathematics. Well, it is that, but only as a sidebar to the main story of the life of Bertrand Russell, the man who wanted to secure the foundations of mathematics for once and for all. While he counted himself a failure in this particular aim, his collaborative work with A. N. Whitehead, the Principia Mathematica, created the platform for geniuses such as Wittgenstein, Gödel, John von Neumann and Turing, who were to bring about epistemic breaks in mathematics, philosophy and computers. A self-referential work that dramatises the process of its own formation, Logicomix ends up working out a wonderful synthesis between logic and passion, what’s provable and what lies outside meaning. Beautifully illustrated, immensely intelligent and written with clarity, style, verve and great intellectual honesty, it sets a benchmark for graphic novels. If we had had books such as this when we were at school, mathematics would have been a delight rather than the fearsome spectre that it is for most.

Read the article on The Times' website.