I was in your position some years ago so I can pass on what I found great reading. Both are very well known classics but as no one mentioned them..
- Enjoyment of mathematics (Rademacher and Toplitz). Amazing book that includes many vignettes on different parts of mathematics. Totally recommend it. I learnt a lot of mathematics from this little book.
- Mathematics:it's content,method and meaning (The Russian giants of math i.e Gelfan'd, Kolmogorov, Aleksandrov, etc) This is one of the best books to read in my opinion. I read the first volume while in high school and it was such an amazing experience. It's a compendium (almost encyclopedic) of articles written by experts about the different branches of mathematics. I'm still reading it to this day. I think the notation is a little bit dated but not terribly so.
I think both of these books will give you a nice coverage of mathematical ideas to play with and discover. After that you can very well jump into what interested you the most, for that search here for recommended bibliography or ask a question if none has. Best of luck!
manpreet![Tuteehub forum best answer]()
Best Answer
2 years ago
I'm an international student about to go into my last year of high school, and I haven't found many mathematical books that interest me. I'm looking for a mixture of interesting, but respected books, as it's also a way to show my passion for Mathematics in my personal statement. So far I've read Schaum's Theory & Problems with Modern Algebra, and I've started reading the Physics version. I've written papers in Machine Learning which is another field of Mathematics that I enjoy, however, I think something more fundamental might be more insightful. If you had any recommendations for a concise (Not a 378 page proof of 1+1=2) read, or a like STPMD a book that focuses' on problems as well. Thank you.