I'm looking for a calculus book that (1) is comprehensive and rigorous enough for Calculus I-III (but pre-Spivak/Apostol in terms of rigor — they can come later perhaps) (2) has only a small number of exercises (say, about 10 per section, where a section is along the lines of a section in the standard brick textbooks of Stewart/Anton/etc.).
Every so often I attempt a cover-to-cover completion of a calculus book but end up getting bogged down in tedious, repetitious exercises whose answers I get right. Even supposedly pared-down books — e.g., Stewart's ESSENTIAL CALCULUS — have way too many exercises.
Now, you may wonder why I can't take one of the standard books and focus on, say, only the odd-numbered exercises. I've tried that. There's still too much tedium and repetition. I come away thinking I could've learned just as much with a tiny set of well-chosen exercises. As for other schemes, I really don't want to spend half my time examining dozens and dozens of exercises just to pick out a custom exercise set.
Help.
Edit: I just discovered that Serge Lang has a book called CALCULUS OF SEVERAL VARIABLES. I wrote off Lang's A FIRST COURSE IN CALCULUS because it's weak on Calc III and may not even be all that comprehensive for Calc I and Calc II — but, on the other hand, it seems to have just the right number of exercises for my needs. Does anyone have any comments on using these two books for Calc I-III? Are there better alternatives? (I don't mind if it's not the same author for Calc I+II and Calc III.)
Best Answer
I've worked with Thomas' "Calculus", I have the 11th Edition -- which is pretty bloated but the quality is good, I also have earlier editions. There are many exercises, but the quality is high. It is not up to the level of Apostol or Spivak but if you are okay with that it's excellent.