Hello,
I'm sorry if this question isn't posted correctly. I hope that it is (since other questions regarding roadmaps have been allowed). Now to my question:
From what I've heard from professors and such, algebraic geometry seems like an interesting branch of mathematics. I'd like to learn some basic results and maybe do some kind of thesis in a few years on the subject. So, what I'm curious about is you have any tips on what books to read? Say that one has read Artin's Algebra and Herstein's Topics in Algebra, and also has the basic courses in real analysis and topology, complex variables etc. down, where should one go to learn? What books? I'm also curious if algebraic geometry (at an "easy level") requires deep knowledge about other fields of mathematics too, so that one might have to read books that at first seems to have no relevance to algebraic geometry?
Best regards.
Best Answer
I believe there have been similar questions, but not one exactly of this flavor.
To answer your last question, it is true that you need to know many different areas of mathematics in order to delve deeply into algebraic geometry. On the other hand, to get a basic grounding in the field, one need only have a basic understanding of abstract algebra.
That being said, I will give my recommendations.
If you have already done complex variables, and I'm not sure that every student in your position will have completed this, I recommend Algebraic Curves and Riemann Surfaces by Rick Miranda. Although this book also develops a complex analytic point of view, it also develops the basics of the theory of algebraic curves, as well as eventually reaching the theory of sheaf cohomology. Multiple graduate students have informed me that this book helped them greatly when reading Hartshorne later on.
If you want a very elementary book, you should go with Miles Reid's Undergraduate Algebraic Geometry. This book, as its title indicates, has very few prerequisites and develops the necessary commutative algebra as it goes along. More advanced students may complain that this book does not get very far, but I think it may very well satisfy what you are looking for.
Another book you might want to check out is the book Algebraic Curves by William Fulton, which you can thankfully find online for free.
If you would not mind a computational approach, and furthermore a book which requires even fewer algebraic prerequisites than you seem to have, you might want to check out Ideals, Varieties, and Algorithms by Cox and O'Shea.
Thierry Zell's suggestion is also supposed to be good.
That being said, if you decide that you like algebraic geometry and decide to go more deeply into the subject, I highly recommend that you learn some commutative algebra (such as through Commutative Algebra by Atiyah and Macdonald). But for the moment, I think the above recommendations will suit you well.