The author has been reading Barry Mazur's "Imagining numbers," one of a number of recent general books about mathematics. This one, typically, is said in the preface to be for "people who have no training in mathematics." It does, perhaps untypically, invoke algebraic symbolism and solve quadratic and cubic equations. More intriguingly, it specifically addresses "people at home in the imaginative life of poetry," inviting them to consider how an experience of mathematical imagining might compare with "the imaginative work involved in reading and understanding a phrase in a poem." The author was drawn into reading it, and found it raised a number of interesting questions-- about imagination, as well as about the nature, history, and teaching of mathematics. In this article, the author discusses the book and questions who it is that buys such books. (A list of references and notes are included.)