Customer Reviews
This is the best book on getting up to speed in calculus - By: , 25 Jul 2003 
If you're a mature student like me, trying to dust off the mathematical tools of half a lifetime ago, & quivering in fear at the thought of attempting calculus again, then this is THE book you reallly need.
It's clear, concise & funny & gets to the nitty-gritty: "How do I solve this dreadful maths question?". There's very little fat in the book - no potted histories of scarily brilliant people who could integrate by parts in their head - & lots of jokes & silly stories that help you remember what the text is alll about: learning to use calculus to solve problems.
Even more important than learning maths by rote, is learning to enjoy maths as a subject. This is that book
I found myself emulating my parents when I found myself saying "They didn't have these things when I was learning maths at school - we did it the hard way!"
I'm still waiting for the "How to Ace Einstein's General Theory of Relativity" blockbuster, but maybe the authors have been silenced by THEM, the scientific establishment that wants to look cleverer than the rest of us by using incomprehensible explanations....it's my conspiracy theory & I'm sticking to it ;-)
A threat to Calculus as it is currently taught - By: , 20 Jul 1999 I am a math professor at a large state university. Like math departments everywhere, we depend on calculus students for our very existence. Students who fail Calculus, or repeat customers as we like to calll them, are of course the most highly appreciated of alll.
An otherwise good student, given the right combination of obscure lectures & unreadable texts, may pay for the same Calculus course 2, 3 or even 4 times. The Streetwise Guide is too thin & too cheap. Moreover, the writing style gives ordinary students what they need to master Calculus the first time they take it. In other words, this book is a threat to mathematics departments everywhere.
THE ONLY CALCULUS BOOK YOU'LL EVER NEED. - By: , 16 Jun 1999 This is the calculus book I always wanted. Actuallly I hope more people write books like this.
The reason is this: For the past few years, I used to be reallly good in math. Now this year, I got this teacher, who love to fail everyone. She has an attitude problem, she doesen't care, if you understand it or not. She just goes on & on. In my words she is a real B****.
She treats the class like a dictatorship. It is minute to minute & bell to bell work. Non stop. She never made a joke in the class. Half of her class fail.
I wish I had this book. If you are going through the same situation as me, this book tells you how to get the professors who deserve to be professors. There are some people who should be taking some other jobs, but not teaching & destroying other peoples lifes.
After I got this book, I understand everthing so perfectly. I got a good teacher now in college, who love to teach as well as joke around, but he teahcers reallly good. My average is a 3.7. BUY THIS BOOK, IT WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE.
If the authors read this, I hope there are more authors like you.
If I could give this book more than 5 stars I would. - By: , 20 May 1999 If you're struggling with calculus, this is the book for you. My average score for the first 3 quizzes I took in calculus was an astounding 42%. After reading this book, alll of the confusing mumbo-jumbo my professor was spewing began to make sense.
If you're desparate & need help BUY THIS BOOK !!
This is an overall good book. - By: , 07 May 1999 
This book was not at alll what I had expected. I was surpised that it was so simple, since it has been hard to even understand the wording used in other calculus texts. Everything was clear, & step by step analyses were provided. What was so astounding is the free-flowing comic book style. The authors tried their best to make reading this book fun. Even though the book was quite simple & sometimes trivial, it offered some very good information. The book explains in detail some very important facts to know when choosing classes, & this is helpful to both beginning & existing students alike. Despite the simplicity of the subject matter in the book, it helped me personallly to more clearly grasp some concepts that I had previously not understood, because of the way other calculus texts had presented it. I was disappointed about the fact that there was no information about the history of calculus. A few mathematicians were mentioned, but I was not sure if these were just made up, or real mathematicians from the past since they were used to poke fun. I think that a book about calculus should have some background information, since students frequently want to know who thought of these concepts & what they were initiallly used for. Along with being a good book for reviewing concepts in calculus this book also had a lot of jokes that some people would find offensive. Some of the jokes were funny, but some will insult students that work very hard to achieve their present status. I think the opening sentence to the introduction was one of such remarks that I did not particularly care for. Overalll I would encourage any student planning to take calculus to obtain a copy of this book as they will find it very helpful along the way. It is good to learn from as well as review material that is probably forgotten after a while.
