5 comments about The Calculus Lifesaver: All the Tools You Need to Excel at Calculus (Princeton Lifesaver Study Guides).

1. Before I even start talking about the actual book, let me just tell you that this is a steal. I don't know what the publisher was thinking, but a 750 page, recently published book on Calculus never sells for such a low price. On Amazon it sells for $16, which is a ridiculously low price for this 5 star tome. The average Calculus book is far from cheap, so this excellent guide is a pure bargain. Now, let's talk about the content of the book.
   
   I'm very exigent when it comes to Calculus books and usually like a very formal and rigorous style. Most people don't. Many tend to like accessible books that speak to them in plain English. And this book is marketed as such. This is supposed to be an extra aid, on top of a regular textbook, to make Calculus more accessible. However, it stands on its own, thanks to its comprehensiveness and clarity. If commonly adopted Calculus books puzzle you, or if you are studying on your own, this is the book for you. Every step is clearly explained and it doesn't fail when it comes to covering all the pre-requisites/fundamentals. Thanks to its style and approach, pretty much anyone who's willing to learn, will. I'd even recommend it to high school students who wish to learn more about this subject, because I don't think they would have any trouble following along. The tone is informal, friendly and often even funny, making it one of the least boring math books I've ever read. I highly recommend it to those who are struggling and would like to really understand the subject.



2. This is the best book I found for single variable Calculus. It should cover all or most of the topics from what is offered at school as Calculus 1 and Calculus 2. However, the book does not offer any or much information about Calculus 3, or Multivariable Calculus. However, most calculus help books do not offer much information about multivariable calculus. In addition, this book just came out. Maybe the author is working on or will work on that talks about multivariable caclulus. This book is a definite buy, however. Buy it, it covers all or most of single variable Calculus and is written in very understandable words. I was just writing this review to point out my problems with trying to find a multivariable book.



3. I was a math/chemistry major and have a PhD in Biochemistry. I was looking for a review book to teach my son after being away from Calculus for 30 years. This is the Best Calculus book - Ever!! It is written in plain English as if you had your own personal tutor. There are many many examples of problems solved for you with step by step explanation and some real world examples. This book is must if you are taking Calculus for the first time or reviewing it. This book is Awesome!



4. This is one of the best books I have found for a beginning calculus student. If you have a good knowledge of algebra you a desire to learn, you will succeed with this book. There are clear explanations and very difficult material is broken down into understandable pieces. Also, the videos on the website are really good. This is also a real bargain at under $20.00. Excellent book. Excellent teacher.



5. I wish I had this book in college. If I did, I would've had an A in Calculus. Oh I managed to squeaked by and I was thankful I didn't need to take the class twice, but that was never acceptable to my ego. I have read other calculus books since college. They helped some, but didn't fill in the holes the way I wanted. I thumbed through this book last night and it filled in some of those holes in just a couple hours! Yes!!! This is the book I have been looking for. If you are taking calculus and feel something is missing, buy this book. If you plan to take calculus, buy this book now. I also would recommend the Humongous book of Calculus problems, lots of paper, and a good set of pencils.

No comments about Introductory & Intermediate Algebra for College Students (3rd Edition) (The Blitzer Developmental Algebra Series).

4 comments about Essential Calculus.

1. When I received this book, my immediate reaction was one of joy and surprise. A textbook for differential and integral calculus that is less than 1000 pages is unheard of in the modern age. Then, I opened it to determine what the others have that this one does not.
   
   *) There are not pages and pages of problems at the ends of the sections. When comparing other calculus books, it has appeared that there is some kind of arms race regarding the number of problems at the ends of the sections. Properly done, 20 -50 problems are enough, hence no loss.
   *) There is little mention of a calculator or a symbolic mathematics program such as Mathematica. I applaud this because I don't use graphing calculators. Simple sketches are enough to grasp the ideas, so I don't miss this either.
   *) The number of examples is reduced. It is impossible to anticipate all of the conceptual difficulties students will have, so any attempt to write an example for all possible scenarios is impossible. The role of instructors is to answer the questions textbook authors do not anticipate.
   
   The coverage is that of the traditional calculus text, so there is no loss of fundamental content. I am not scheduled to teach introduction to calculus for some time, so at this time I have no need for this book. However, if I were teaching it next fall, this is the book that I would use.



2. Returning to school after many years' absence, the university required me to re-take calculus and other courses to prove that I could keep up. Having received an "A" in two calculus courses, a "B" in another, I re-started the series without too much worry. WRONG. This text does not explain fully, let alone in depth, any concept so far this semester. The few examples that are covered often do not match the problems presented at the end of the section. Thompson's claim of having taken material out of his text and put that material on his website is a joke at best. Skeletonized is the best word I can think of for both the text and the offerings on the web. Thank goodness I had a couple old texts laying around that offered clear, concise explainations of concepts and to-the-point examples.
   
   Perhaps all of this could have been dealt with if the professor had presented examples of problems during class time or gone over the homework once it was returned. That is not his policy. His only suggestion was to go to the Engineering Tutoring Center and do my homework there. With four children and a husband at home, and a job, that was not an option.
   
   So, all in all, I gave the book a 1. Maybe an E for Effort, but you can never have too many examples nor too many problems to practice on before an exam. Thompson's text left you wanting.



3. Frankly, I'm not sure what significant differences Stewart has made, compared to his other books, as I've not encountered those. But considering this book as a standalone entity, then the material is skilfully presented. With ample examples that are thoroughly worked out. Plus, there is a plentitude of exercises that the reader is urged to tackle.
   
   The rigour of the theorems is not at the level of Spivak or Apostol's texts on introductory calculus. But those are aimed at maths majors. Stewart's work is best suited for students going off to major in science or engineering. It lacks the epsilon-delta approach pioneered in the 19th century. But the infinitesimals viewpoint is perfectly adequate, and is probably more intuitive to many readers anyway.



4. For my 2 students in college, I buy International editions of books to save money. This one is the same, but the problems at the end of each chapter are different, so she cannot use it in class.

5 comments about Stochastic Calculus for Finance II: Continuous-Time Models (Springer Finance).

1. While writing a review for Hull's text, I suggested that an easier (than to start with Hull) way to learn quantitative finance is to pick up one of the more focused books on the subject. There is a huge deluge of these books - I think one comes out every few weeks. They all cover the same topics, in roughly the same manner, so there is little that distinguishes one from the other. There is certainly not much different in content in Shreve than in others - in fact you cannot go wrong by picking any well known book - just pick the cheapest.
   
   What is different about Shreve is that he does not skimp on the details. As another reviewer pointed out, this is not an elegant book. For people new to quant finance, this is actually a good thing. There are pages after pages of ugly equations written in gory detail. In almost any other quantitative book (I don't mean quantitative finance book - but any book that is of a quantitative nature, be it wireless communications or information theory or what have you) these details would have been omited. But not here, and for a good reason: There are PhDs in areas that are only remotely quantitatve - who want to switch to quantitative finance just because they think there is money in the area. These people don't have the mathematical maturity or stamina required to actually go home and do the (mechanical!) math between equations themselves. They want to see it all done, served to them on a platter with fries and ketchup, please - because they haven't done math in a while but are "interested" in it. Shreve obliges. And succeeds beautifully in serving pre-digested food to those that need it.
   
   Shreve even gives you a sense of having done something yourself through his exercies. Again the excercises in his book are unlike anything that I have see in any mathematically inclined text - they make up a whole section in each chapter. Again, Shreve is serving you things on a platter - the exercies essentially come with the equivalent of a verbose TA built-in - Shreve guides you to the solution, in a very tenderly-holding-your-hand manner. Of course, this is a good thing, for those that need it.
   
   The chapters on SDEs and even on jump processes will make good chicken-soup introductions to these topics, and are written in a more rigorous (and, though I repeat myself, verbose) fashion than some of the other books I have seen. The book also strikes a good balance between the PDE approach and the martingale approach to pricing. The chapter on PDEs itself, in particular, is well written and does a good job of pointing out the Feynamn Kac connection between the two approaches. In general, this book covers everythying that my friends who are faculty in mathematical finance courses teach in a (continuous time finance course in a) typical MS in Qfin program.
   
   While my review may sound negative, the verbosity of the book is its asset, because most people approaching it are looking for it. When grad students, who otherwise are not interested in talking to me, learn about what I do for a living and suddenly become extremely ingratiating, (and start drooling a bit from the side of their mouth) and go on to ask me for what to read, this is the book I recommend to them. It will take them from cluelessness to the point where they can actually see what Hull has been sweeping under the carpet.
   
   Let me say it again, this is not a negative review for the book. The book does its job beautifully. But it doesnt have a soul. But then, nor does the greedy grad student who is suddenly interested in quantitative finance.



2. I say it's an "introduction" because I have little background in both stochastic calculus and finance but find this to be fairly easy to read. Unlike other texts that present the material in a much more dense manner, i.e. skipping over the majority of derivations, Schreve goes through the derivation for even the most routine of derivations--which is actually great for a newbie like me.
   
   The text is self-contained and covers a wide range of topics. I would like him to cover some practical aspects of modeling in finance, but that's really not what the text is about. For what it set out to explain, it does a great job. 5 stars.



3. This is the most fundamental word in mathematical finance. Those with a background in math will benefit most: ordinary differential equations, probability theory, statistics and multivariable calculus prerequisites. This is a very mathematical approach. Don't look to it for computational implementations of the financial models it covers. But for the mathematical foundations of the models, this is THE book.



4. Nicely written. Shreve is the one of the best authors in mathematical writings(another one I like is milnor). Worth buying one.



5. This is definitely one of the best introductory books on financial mathematics. The book starts to make sense after a summer course in discrete-time martingale course (using william's blue book). Shreve's book gives a general introduction to Brownian motion and Ito stochastic calculus. At the same time, he shows how to apply these theoreis into financial maths, equity or interest rate etc. If you want to learn financial mathematics at a relatively more rigourous level (yet still not too difficult), this is the book to read. If you want intuition and implementation, I strongly recommend Mark Joshi's concepts and practice of mathematical finance.

5 comments about Schaum's Outline of Calculus (Fourth Edition).

1. not that great, if you have a good text, you'll notice that the examples are pretty much the same



2. In order to take an advanced statistics course (since I have been out of college awhile) I have to take a calculus test. They gave me a sample of 60 questions from prior years and recomended a text that cost $180!!!
   
   Well for 1/15 of the price of the expensive text, I can get about 55 out of 60 questions answered through this one. The ones that are not covered in this book pertain to complex integrations - I'll buy the Schaum's Advanced Calc text and get my answers and still have tons of money left over.
   
   *** Another thing is that the first few chapters are an excellent review of pre-calc, something I did not think I would need but it turns out to be more useful than I thought. ****
   
   The covering of some topics, like LaHopital's rule is better than most texts.
   
   I have not encountered typos yet - when I have that that I did - once I plunge into it more - turns out he is right and I was mistaken.
   
   ****Having numberous worked out problems and problems with at least the solutions to check yourself is GREAT FOR SELF STUDY ****



3. This book does provide coverage of all major material in traditional calculus,however the manner in which the material is presented is similar to that of a condensed textbook, which is neither entertaining nor completely clear. If you want a quick study guide then this is the book for you,provided you understand most information you read in a textbook. All in all, this book is alright, but I wouldn't depend solely on it.



4. I bought this book to supplement my class textbook when I was having trouble in Calculus I. I chose this book over the many other supplements available because I knew I could carry forward into Calculus II and Multivariable Calculus.
   As mentioned in many other reviews, this book provides plenty of practice problems, so if you're having an issue in one particular area in class or in the class's textbook, this is a good place to go to really thoroughly understand it. They provide a decent number of examples and solutions. Within each chapter are explanations of the lesson, followed by example problems with step-by-step solutions, and finally "Supplementary Problems" for you to solve on your own (though there are no answers in the back for you to check your work). It's also got some really good lists of trig formulas, geometric formulas, common integrals, and common derivitives.
   The only thing I dislike about the book is that the explanations are rather poor compared to a textbook, but it's hardly surprising seeing as how this is an outline and that it covers topics from the beginning of Calc I all the way through differential equations of first and second order in under 600 pages.
   I would totally recommend this book for the student looking to supplement a confusing textbook, or looking to brush up on concepts that have gotten a little rusty.



5. This book is great for when you're beginning Calculus, but it doesn't give intense hard problems for it. Great study guide to review the basics but isn't the hardcore stuff.

5 comments about Pre-Calculus Demystified.

1. I am one of those pathetic cases who should have been a math major, but could not stay awake during the freshman pre-calc lectures conducted by bored and boring grad students. Now, nearly 40 years later I am determined to self-educate my way through calculus.
   
   At first I took a crack at the Wiley "Precalculus A Self Teaching Guide". Holy cripes, what a disaster! Unnerving to find such an improbable number of errors, especially for student picking up after decades of non-study.
   
   Then, I grabbed Rhonda Huettenmeuller's fine work, and am doing the practice at the end of chapter four. I actually remembered some of my advanced algebra and managed to work my way through the problems.
   
   Well written and clear, she provides enough dimensions on problems to give you insight, then gives you room enough to have to think a bit. The answers are all provided, and are *correct*. Well, at least we agree, so that is certainly a good sign.
   
   I especially appreciate how she teaches this from the perspective of tackling calculus as the next step, pointing out issues that particularly apply, and how, to more advanced mathematics.
   
   Now, if we can just get her to write more books...



2. I received this book 2 weeks before my college entrance exam to smooth over what I momentarily learned in high school--I Do not want to end up in a lower than Calculus math class, paying for a class that does not give me any college credit.
   
   So far I have been getting through a chapter each day, in about hour and a half of on and off study.
   
   It is continuing to get me more comfortable with my math skills in a very short time. I Recommend it to anyone who fears there college entrance exam, or interested in learning Precalc on their own.



3. It was a great book, gave me what I needed at the pace I found acceptable. I also jumped into the middle of the book once to give a friend a hand and it was on polynomial functions. In ten minutes flat I was already calculating them! Amazing! If I continue at this rate, I can slack off in my Pre-Calculus college class and still pass! No, but seriously though, it's an awesome book and have recommended it to all my friends.



4. Pros:
   
   1. Excellent for the first semester of precalculus, especially the study of different families of functions.
   2. Does a good job of explaining topics in detail and providing examples of problems.
   3. Provides plenty of problems for practice of concepts.
   4. Provides excellent end of chapter tests for review and feedback.
   
   Cons:
   
   1. Trignometry section is lacking. Needs more detail on trignometric identities.
   2. Lacks information in the second semester of precalculus. Does not have anything on vectors, parametric equations, polar equations, statistics, or limits.
   3. Does not have anything on rotating conic sections.



5. I took a tough Precalculus class last year and found myself half-way through the semester totally and hopelessly confused. I couldn't afford tutoring (financially or time-wise - I work full-time and take night classes) and seriously contemplated dropping the class to save my GPA. I bought this book and ended up aceing the class. I know that sounds unlikely, but the author has a way of describing the concepts in a totally understandable way and it all just clicked. I enjoy math, but tend to be a little slow at picking things up, and the lay person approach of the book really worked for me.

No comments about Algebra for College Students- 8th Edition (with Interactive Video Skillbuilder CD-ROM).

5 comments about Elementary Algebra for College Students.

1. The book was laid out well and establishes a good flow with the reader. Contains helpful drawings and diagrams. This book is well suited for visual learners.



2. I would really like to thank Mr. Angel for putting together a great book. I have to admit that I was afraid of Algebra until I started studying from this book.

   Thanks !




3. I wish he had written all of my text books. Everything is clearly laid out with examples that are broken down into small steps to make understanding even clearer.



4. I used this book in my first back-to-college algebra class, and it is a great book. Easy to understand explanations and step-by-step instructions made algebra way easier than I remembered! Please note: the companion solutions manual has many wrong answers. The book itself, however, is great. If your class is using this book, you will do well.



5. I flunked algebra in high school. Now I'm taking a 095 algebra class at a local collage and now I'm getting A's and B's. It's a great book and ours came packaged with lecture CDs. It maybe the best algebra text book but you still have to do practice problems over and over to get good grades they don't just happen because the book was so good.

4 comments about Calculus and Its Applications (9th Edition).

1. Its examples and explanations are very good. It contains the essentials of Calculus and good applications in many fields, e.g. biology, economics, etc.



2. Probably I did not read the description of this book carefully, that is why not what I expected. Anyway, the transaction was very pleasant!!!



3. This book is great for the person new to Calculus as I was at the time I went through an earlier version. The examples are well written, with the steps easy to follow. Interim steps to the result are not skipped as has been the case with other Calculus books I've read. The book begins very simply, so someone with just algebra can follow. I can not overstate the importance of working through the problems though, that was the only way I came to appreciate Calculus. What I liked most about this book was that it had alot of applications to real life, using economic, business and science examples. I learn best when I can apply the information directly to my work, and this text did a good job of allowing me to do that.



4. it's what I ordered, except it mentioned that it included software, which was misleading because that particular software can be used only once. Besides that, very good.

No comments about Beginning Algebra (5th Edition) (The Martin-Gay Developmental Algebra Series (hardbacks)).