> It then seems strange that, by contrast, writers of math books don't seem to be playing the same game. Oh, but they are playing that game. It's just a very d

> It then seems strange that, by contrast, writers of math books don't seem to be playing the same game. Oh, but they are playing that game. It's just a very difficult game. Everyone wants easy math books and lots of people are trying to write easy math books (for example, my buddy Ivan and his No Bullshit guides: https://minireference.com/ https://minireference.com/ ). It's just a very difficult game, and very few have come close to success. When they do succeed, it's usually only for one kind of audience and not another. For example, Spivak's Calculus is widely admired in the mathematical community for its presentation, but I wouldn't be surprised if HN derided it for being stuffy, too mathematical, elitist, and full of itself.