Ask HN: What's the best textbook you've read?

The book is a selective review of the most significant ideas in maths and mathematical research. The great editorial process is what sets this book apart from the rest: each chapter is authored by an outstanding expert in his/her particular field (among which several fields medalist the likes of Terence Tao) and the editing by Timothy Gowers does an amazing job of uniforming the tone, notation and rigor across the whole text.

The authors were evidently chosen also for their communication skills since the articles come across as quite discoursive and really convey the beauty of modern maths.

In the book you'll find not only the articles on mathematical concepts, but also an introduction to modern mathematics, chapters on the relationship of maths with other sciences, a thorough history of mathematics and a collection of biographies of famous mathematicians.

Well recommended to anybody with an interest in maths. My background is in CS and I found it approachable (except minor sections) and illuminating!

(I think I've read the first volume, at least, even though I don't claim to have understood it all.)

An excellent and very fun read about compilation, interpretation, and programming semantics.

I don’t think you already have to know LISP, although there isn’t an introduction, but if you know any programming it would be enough to pick up the programs that are used as examples. Source code from the book is available and you will end up programming as you move along and it is a delight to see yourself make a program that can interpret another program.