I will admit, I have always done reasonably well in math. I like the subject – it seems intuitive to me for the most part. One of the things that stuck with me for the longest time, though, was quality of instruction I got from once teacher in Highschool – my Calculus teacher. During the first day of class, he explained all pre-calculus math to us in about 30 minutes, and it made sense. I had the same experience listening to Richard Feynman’s lectures on Physics.
That is why I was so astounded to find this gold mine in a used book store. John Riner, the author, walks through mathematics the way it should be done – starting with set theory and gradually progressing through algebra, geometry and matrix theory up to calculus. This is a small book – only 297 pages including the index, but it teaches math in the way it was meant to be taught. This is not to say that this book is easy – it moves fast and it has none of the “new math” garbage word problems in it that contemporary students are probably used to. Instead, it focuses with laser precision on the actual mathematical concepts. For the serious student of mathematics, I cannot recommend this book enough.
One last note, this book was published in 1963 and is out of print. As of this writing, there are only 4 used copies left on Amazon. I would not expect those copies to remain available forever.
Working Through the BookLog 