I read many layman oriented maths books in HS and none of them taught me a single thing. There's no such thing as "learning to read it" because it's not a language.

The difference is enormous and obvious, but feel free to start a thread about learning to perform mathematics calculations and such.

If you want an introduction to mathematics for layman which isn't heavy and helps your Japanese at the same time, this is good:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%95%B0%E5%AD%...026&sr=8-1

There's also a second volume.

Looking at the contents, it goes into the history of numbers, algebra, complex number, geometry, differentiation, integration and differential equations. This is genuinely a book that anyone can read, and provided your Japanese is up to scratch, I guess you could call it a page turner.

By the way, the book "Road to Reality" in the list is harder than any textbook I've ever read. I remember trying to read it before university and by the time they got onto contour integration in the complex plane (without ever talking about what that means), I was completely lost. And that was only chapter 7 or so! Out of about 40 or something...

Looking into Mathematics: From the Birth of Numbers and Mathematics for the Nonmathematician now, from the OP list. They have a nice combination of conceptual descriptions and outlines of the mechanics of notation, in an accessible style, from what I can tell so far. The former is sparser textually and with less of a progressive curve in how equations are introduced and sequenced, which can make following the equations without solving them more difficult.