Basic Mathematics for the Physical Sciences (book)

Most Maths books I tried either go way over my head or concentrate on the easy stuff. This book is the best Basic Maths book I've ever come across. It goes into detail (without dumming down too much) and it helped enormously when I did a Level 2 Physics course with the OU. Where they did not explain the Maths enough, I just dipped into this book and went EUREKA!

I really like the design of this book. Every section pre-tests you to find out your strengths and weaknesses, so you'll know whether you can skip it or have to backtrack to an earlier section. This means that you can tackle the book at your own pace; either following in meticulous detail when you need it or just getting straight to the point when all you need is a refresher course. A lot of other textbooks could benefit from this sort of approach.

This book covers the basic algebra, vectors, geometry and calculus. There's also a second book that covers complex numbers, differential equations and vector calculus that's every bit as good.