Math 326

Graham, Knuth and Patashnik, Concrete Mathematics: A foundation for Computer Science. Addison-Wesley (1994). ISBN 0201558025. A customer review on Amazon says this: "This book is excellent ... the book looks as if it might be an entry level text and it is tempting to think that with a little extra hard work any intelligent, reasonably well-grounded mathematics undergraduate student could prove that he is a genius by mastering the content. A fair number, of course, will do just that. But many more will unnecessarily bloody their noses and egos. " If you're a well-rounded mathematical genius feel free to give it a go. Personally I'd rather not have to deal with bloody noses. List Price $79.99. Find a copy.

Haggard, Schlipf, Whitesides Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science, Thompson/Brooks/Cole (2006) ISBN 053449501X. List Price $189.95. Its actually a pretty good book but it lacks a sufficient number of examples for this class and is somewhat more difficult to read than Epp. Since its a lot more concise, it fits more easily in a backpack. Find a copy.

Lipschutz and Lipson, Schaum's Outline of Discrete Mathematics, Revised Third Edition, McGraw-Hill (2009) ISBN 0071615865. Really just a list of facts, not in the same order than we are going to cover them, and not explained. Better as a reference for stuff you already know. Lots of examples like the rest of the series. If you like this sort of thing it might help but if the material is new to you its probably not of much value. List Price $18.95. Find a copy.

Rosen, Discrete Mathematics and its Applications, 6th Edition, McGraw-Hill (2007). ISBN 9780072880083. List Price $148.05. Another gazillion-pounder. An excellent book - for more advanced students. It leans more to the mathematical and less to the computational applications. It goes into far more details then Epp. If you are really interested in the material, this is good supplemental reading. If you are completely new to discrete mathematics and you've only had the minimim pre-requistes, its going to be a hard read. Its sold like 300,000 copies which means that either its really popular or a lot of schools require this text and then they keep coming out with new editions before students can sell the old ones for more than kindling. If it seems like Epp keeps going over the same details over and over again and never gets to the real meat, give this one a go. Find a copy.

Ross and White, Discrete Mathematics, 5th Edition. Prentice-Hall (2002). ISBN 0130652474. The preface to the student says: "You may find this course the hardest mathematics class you have ever taken, at least in part because you won't be able to look through the book to find examples just like the homework problems. That's not the way it is with this subject." Probably enough said there. In fact, its poorly written and incoherently organized, and, of course, the authors didn't feel it was necessary to include relevant examples, as they so eloquently state in the preface. List Price $84.00. Find a copy.