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I read single variable calculus this semester, and the course is using Thomas Calculus as the textbook. But this book is just too huge, a single chapter contains 100 exercise questions! Now I'm looking for a concise and complete textbook. I'm not interested in routine, computational exercises, but rather some challenging problem sets.

I have quite a strong basic knowledge of calculus from high school, but I still have difficulties in solving a few questions from past exam papers. So I'm looking for more challenging exercises. In fact, I'm looking forward to solving Putnam level questions.

Please suggest some textbooks with these features. Thanks in advance.

  • 2
    Perhaps try: http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Store/viewitem.php?item=calculus2011-09-11
  • 0
    See this thread http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2395/what-are-the-recommended-textbooks-for-introductory-calculus2011-09-12
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    Some free online options: Strang http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-18-001-calculus-online-textbook-spring-2005/textbook/ , Guichard and Koblitz http://www.whitman.edu/mathematics/multivariable/ , Crowell (me) http://www.lightandmatter.com/calc/ , Keisler http://www.math.wisc.edu/~keisler/calc.html . Some of these are fairly concise, if that's what you want.2012-01-10
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    Spivak *Calculus*2015-10-20

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