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Comment by dysoco | Hacker News Reader

So could anyone suggest a nice book for a High School student (I know basic algebra, but no Calculus so far) to learn math? The school system is not very good here, so I have to do some of the learning by myself.

I have looked at Concrete Mathematics by Donald Knuth, would that be complicated to understand?

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Velleman's "How to Prove It" is a great book to learn how to do mathematics.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Prove-It-Structured-Approach/dp/05...

Check out my No bullshit guide to math and physics: http://minireference.com/ [$33], it covers all of high school math, mechanics, derivatives, and integrals.

An excellent free alternative is Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus P. Thompson, which is very good and also funny http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33283

That book looks amazing, I'd love to learn some Physics too, will see if I can get it.

Read the first pages of Calculus Made Easy, looked nice so far.

Concrete Mathematics should not be too hard to understand for someone who understands basic algebra. Most of the topics it covers use nothing more than arithmetic and simple logic.

That said it is not a good general mathematics book (it is designed as a Computer Science book).

A book that will help you - How to think like a Mathematician: http://www.amazon.ca/How-Think-Like-Mathematician-Undergradu...

I'd suggest that you also spend some time learning how to learn maths more effectively. That usually pays dividends over time and ought to give you a significant advantage.

Two good books on this:

How to Solve It

http://www.amazon.com/How-Solve-It-Mathematical-Princeton/dp...

Thinking Mathematically

http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Mathematically-J-Mason/dp/020...

And if you want to get better at sitting maths-based exams, here's my own book, Exam Mastery: How to excel in maths-heavy exams :

http://www.amazon.com/Exam-Mastery-excel-maths-heavy-ebook/d...

(No need to buy though - if you want it, shoot me an email and I'll just send it over to you.)

I recommend Paul Lockhart's Measurement.

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