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Who would sponsor a gathering of scientists and mathematicians to discuss a really trendy scientific topic? The Pope. The Emergence of Complexity in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology is the proceedings of the Pontifical Academy of Science’s 1992 session on complexity (in all its numerous forms). Though some lectures are in English and some in French, there’s plenty for the monolingual reader. The clerics analyse the “Galileo affair”, cryptographer Adi Shamir gets a Vatican medal, and the book ends with a solemn pontifical address. White smoke on this one. Published by Pontificia Academia Scientarum, distributed by Princeton University Press, £32.50/$39.50, ISBN 8877610557/0691012385.