The Calculus Lifesaver: All the Tools You Need to Excel at Calculus (Princeton Lifesaver Study Guides) [Paperback]

Adrian Banner (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Banner's style is informal, engaging and distinctly non-intimidating, and he takes pains to not skip any steps in discussing a problem. Because of its unique approach, The Calculus Lifesaver is a welcome addition to the arsenal of calculus teaching aids.
(MAA Online )

This rather lengthy book serves as an excellent resource as well as a text for a refresher course in single-variable calculus, and as a study guide for anyone who needs or is required to know basic calculus concepts....Readers will find this book written for them, as calculus is presented in a very casual conversational tone; certainly, students who are not mathematics majors will benefit greatly.
(J.T. Zerger Choice )

Students who are having difficulty in calculus could use it as a resource in addition to their professor and teaching assistant.
(Mathematics Teacher )

Review

I used Adrian Banner's The Calculus Lifesaver as the sole textbook for an intensive, three-week summer Calculus I course for high-school students. I chose this book for several reasons, among them its conversational expository style, its wealth of worked-out examples, and its price. This book is designed to supplement any standard calculus textbook, thus my students will be able to use it again when they take later calculus courses. The students in my class came from diverse backgrounds, ranging from those who had already seen much of the material to others who were struggling with basic algebra. They all uniformly praised the book for being one of the clearest mathematics texts they have ever read, and because it reviews the required prerequisite material. The numerous worked-out examples are an ideal supplement to the lectures. The only difficulty in using this book as a primary text is the lack of additional exercises in the text. However, there are so many sites and sources for calculus problems that this was not a problem. I would definitely use this book again.
(Steven J. Miller, Brown University )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 752 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press; 1 edition (March 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691130884
• ISBN-13: 978-0691130880
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #14,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

  #66 in

  Books > Science > Mathematics > Pure Mathematics > Calculus

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a Very Good and Interesting Book, January 22, 2008

By	Richard N (United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Calculus Lifesaver: All the Tools You Need to Excel at Calculus (Princeton Lifesaver Study Guides) (Paperback)

I purchased The Calculus Lifesaver book written by Adrian Banner when I discovered that my knowledge of Calculus was beginning to get a bit rusty and I wanted to clear up some of the mathematical cob webs in my head.

I read Mr. Banner's book cover to cover in a little less than 4 weeks. The book has 30 chapters consisting of 702 pages and has 46 pages of appendices.

Although the book illustrates each mathematical subject area with a great many solved problems, it does not contain any problem sets that are specifically intended for the reader to solve. This could be a draw back for some and it probably prevents this book from being used as a class room text, but for my purposes it worked well.

Mr. Banner gives an in depth treatment of all the standard stuff like limits, differentiation, integration, Taylor and MacLaurin series, and he gives an overview of topics such as parametric equations, complex numbers, arc lengths, surface areas, and volumes and differential equations.

All in all I feel that this book was well written, easy to read, and interesting. Mr. Banner's approach is quite different from the classical, almost stuff shirt approach that was typical of the math books that I used way back in my under grad days. He does interject some colorful language from time to time which initially surprised me, and then later on amused me, and always kept me interested.

This is an excellent book for those students looking for a second source to review for an up coming midterm exam. Treatment of specific subject areas is clear, concise and can be read and understood in short order.

This is an excellent book for people like my self who need to quickly come back up to speed on subjects that may have become a bit clouded over the years.

This also is an excellent book for people who are learning Calculus for the first time. If you are in the process of learning Calculus the key to really understanding the subject is to work countless problems until the mechanics, concepts, and procedures are firmly ingrained in your mind. For these people I strongly recommend a companion text called "The Humongous Book of Calculus Problems" by W. Michael Kelly. A serious student could learn the concepts and procedures from Mr. Banner's book and then work many of the one thousand problems provided in Mr. Kelly's book to gain proficiency.

After having read Mr. Banner's book, would I purchase this book again? The answer is a definite yes. The money was well spent.

I am anxiously awaiting to see some follow on books from Mr. Banner treating the subjects of Differential Equations and Complex Variables.

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Stars. This book finally makes calculus comprehensible., January 18, 2008

By	JMS - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Calculus Lifesaver: All the Tools You Need to Excel at Calculus (Princeton Lifesaver Study Guides) (Paperback)

I have reviewed dozens of calculus textbooks, and all are noble attempts at communicating something that is problematic for many students in simple-enough terms to be comprehensible. But most calculus textbooks books fail in their effort at simple communication. This book succeeds in that effort marvelously. The examples are worked through thoroughly so that when the reader has finished a section, he actually understands it. The concept of a function is explained as a sort of "machine" that transforms an input into an output. The concept of a limit is again clearly explained more simply and straightforwardly than I have seen it explained anywhere. The book is nevertheless non-trivial; it is solid and certainly not a "Calculus for Dummies" book. It is an easily understood but substantive introduction to calculus. If you've tried calculus several times using other books and in the end given up because the authors inevitably lost you at some unmarked turn in the road, get this book and give it a one more try. I think you'll find you are impressed with the resulting clarity of your understanding. Adrian Banner is gifted at explaining calculus.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very nice and thorough coverage of the subject, August 6, 2007

By	Ognen Duzlevski (West Palm Beach, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Calculus Lifesaver: All the Tools You Need to Excel at Calculus (Princeton Lifesaver Study Guides) (Paperback)

Many calculus textbooks are dry and teach calculus without giving the background motivation of why certain concepts have been discovered in a certain order in time and also how these concepts all relate to each other. Dr. Banner has done a great job at shedding light on the topic of calculus as it should be seen by anyone who really wants to understand the subject and walk away confident in their knowledge.