I read Knuth's book about Conway's invention twenty years ago, but it was
frustrating.
He presents it as a story about a guy and a gal vacationing on an
abandoned island who find a mysterious rock with the rules for creation
of these numbers on it, and who spend their time working out the math.
It was one of those books where the breezy presentation makes you think
everything will be easy, but actually I found the math quite difficult.
Eventually I realized that although I had been following along happily,
I didn't understand it at all.
Also, there wasn't enough sex in it.
Hal