Teaching- what would life be without it?



There needs no Ghost, my lord, come from the Grave to tell us this.

Horatio, Shakespeare's Hamlet (I, verse 125-126)



Table of contents:

My favorite books, mathematics and otherwise




My favorite books


Non-mathematics books (in no particular order):

Name of the rose, by Umberto Eco, The Drowned and the saved, by Primo Levi, History of english speaking peeople, by Winston Churchill, Red Cavalry, by Isaac Babel, The Golem, by Isaac Bashevis Singer, The Assistant, by Bernard Malamud, Papal Sins: Structures of Deceit, by Garry Wills, The Albigensian Crusades, by Joseph Strayer, The Exodus, by Leon Uris, Mila 18, by Leon Uris, Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dawn/Night/Day, by Eli Wiesel, Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, The Last Temptation, by Nikos Kazantzakis.


Listed below are my favorite mathematics book in various categories. These are by no means the only good books in the areas listed, just the ones that I happen to prefer over others. Some of these books are old friends of mine, others are of more recent vintage. The list will sure grow and evolve with time!

Calculus/introductory analysis:

Calculus, by M. Spivak

Differential and integral calculus, by E. Landau.

Calculus and advanced calculus with applications:

Introduction to Calculus and Analysis I and II, by Courant and John.

Undergraduate analysis:

Principles of mathematical analysis, by W. Rudin.

Undergraduate Fourier analysis:

Fourier analysis, by Stein and Shakarchi

Undergraduate abstract algebra:

Topics in algebra, by I. Herstein.

Undergraduate number theory:

Elementary number theory, by E. Landau.

Graduate analysis:

Real and complex analysis, by W. Rudin.

Real analysis, by Stein and Shakarchi.

Combinatorial geometry:

Combinatorial geometry, by Agarwal and Pach.

Lectures on discrete geometry, by Matousek.

Graduate Fourier analysis:

Lectures on harmonic analysis, by T. Wolff

Harmonic analysis, by E. Stein

Fourier integrals in classical analysis, by C. Sogge

Graduate abstract algebra:

Algebra, by Serge Lang.