ISBN0131429248

Subject: Cal. 3
Size: Not too small.
Capacity of knowledge: plenty.
Self instruction: yes.
Manual workbook: $40.
Readable: absolutely.

Good for college students, but the downfall is that it's old and that it tends to use a few ancient methods of solving.

This book was woefully inadequate for my calculus I and II courses. Not in its complexity, but in its explanations. I learn best by reading books and again and again I went to this book to try to learn, and ended up confused and frustrated, sometimes to the point of tears. I had a terrible grad-student Calc I teacher who often assigned the proof problems (!?!?!?!) resulting in a highly intimidating experience, as it's like the book is some high and mighty mathematician who expects you to understand stuff by saying: "here's a theorem and a proof and some rules and stuff, and you should be able to figure out the rest by your own brainpower, stupid undergrad neophyte." I borrowed my husband's old college calc book and fell in love with it. Yes, it was twice the size, but it actually EXPLAINED calculus and the associated jargon and how to DO calculus, something this book does terribly. I understand that it contains a wealth of valuable mathematical information, but my puny undergrad brain had a really difficult time interpreting it with such sparse explanations. It's important that calc texts use jargon and that calc students learn it, but this book seems like it expected us to come to the class already knowing that jargon - it needs better "jargon translation". My calc II teacher was amazing, but I still found this text to be confusing and inaccessable. I ended up with A's both semesters but that's due only to my husband's calc book. Had it been only the Varberg text I used, I'm pretty sure I would have failed and sworn my everlasting hatred of calculus.

i ordered it and got it in a very good condition and in time. customer service is awesome. my blessings. keep up the good work.

The book is very good for someone who is very good at math and wants to be a mathematician. It isn't enough that the authors introduce a theorem, they usually feel it necessary to prove it. They really explore calculus from every angle, too, especially limits. This is no Dummies book, to be sure. I bought it to teach me more calculus (just for fun) after reading Calculus for Dummies, and I cherry picked parts of it and think I have a decent understanding of the material now, if not all the fine points. Fortunately, I have Maple and a friend who has a master's in math to guide me. The book isn't the best for self-learners like me because it only has the answers to odd-numbered problems. I wish all math textbooks gave the answers to all problems, but that is another argument. I'm not sharp at math, but I like to challenge myself sometimes. I think anyone can do math if it's explained well, but this book has no such pity. It's written by mathematicians for aspiring mathematicians. That isn't necessarily bad, but important to bear in mind.

I used this book for 3 semesters of undergraduate calculus and was not impressed. The highlights of the book are Chapters 0-5, the appendices and notes in the back. I just felt like the explanations were often much more complicated than needed. Occasionally I felt there could have been better examples, but usually I think it's better to figure out how to do the problem with incomplete info (part of learning math). A good instructor makes these points obselete, but we all know not every school has high quality math profs in every section. There is probably not a lot to choose from in the way of good calculus texts, but I think there's a lot to be said for the old books. All that said, this book is definitely worth the money if you have to take 2 or more semesters of calculus.