Math Book Reviews

An (incomplete) list of all the math books I went through with reviews, ordered from most to least recent. I am almost certainly forgetting a couple.

Marker, "Model Theory: An Introduction"

I generally enjoyed Marker and would give it a 7/10 (though my view may be biased as this is the only logic book I have gone through), but the problems had serious typos which was a huge headache. 4/10

Guillemin and Pollack, "Differential Topology"

I loved going through this textbook, this was pure joy. The content is fun, the problems were well designed, and there were good drawings and diagrams ("a picture is worth a thousand words"). 8/10

Hatcher, "Algebraic Topology"

I have generally positive feelings about this book, though maybe not as exuberantly positive as everyone else. I like that author often gives good visual intuition or examples. 7/10

Munkres, "Topology"

I don't remember much about this textbook and probably barely skimmed it; it seemed good but not a standout. 5/10

[unknown author], "Complex Analysis"

I have really good memories of the complex analysis textbook we used in Ma 108c at Caltech but for the life of me cannot remember the author's name. It had really fun problems with great intuition and this was one of my favorite courses. I still occasionally think about some of the concepts. 8/10

[unknown author], "Measure Theory"

Again, for the life of me I cannot remember the author's name but have great opinions of whichever textbook we went through in Ma 108b. 7/10

Serge Lang, "Algebra"

I flinch even thinking about this book. The book is structured as a series of statements and the way to solve problems was by finding the right theorem to reference without any actual understanding of the content. 2/10

Dummit & Foote, "Abstract Algebra"

We followed this in my college algebra class; I found this to be more of a reference book than something you can step through and learn from. It did have some good problems however, so 5/10

Rudin, "Principles of Mathematical Analysis"

I thoroughly enjoyed Baby Rudin; good problems and the author is good at explaining concepts intuitively. 7/10

Spivak, "Calculus on Manifolds"

I did not like the textbook first time going through it and would give it a 4/10. Retrospectively it was reasonably good and I still occasionally think about the concepts, will bump it up to 6/10

Kleppner, "Quick Calculus: A Self-Teaching Guide"

I learned calculus from this textbook in 9th grade; this is by far one of my favorite textbook and I cannot recommend it enough. The textbook is structured as a series of problems that step through with good explanations, I wish all math textbooks were structured like this. 10/10