Mathematics+ Further Mathematics books.

Hello Would anybody possibly know what books (apart from the modular books) are good to have if studying Maths and Further Maths [Edexcel]? I have the modular books, however I'd like more books. Please could somebody recommend the best book/s to buy. Also, any other recourse recommendations are also welcomed. Thanks.

I'm getting the idea that Bostock and Chandler books are the ones to get. Are they really that good? I've seen them on Amazon and they are like 300 pages long! The more maths the better.

B & C are top class. Also Teach yourself Calculus and Teach yourself Trigonometry well worth buying.

I've seen the B % C books on the internet (as a preview) and it seems as if it is purely maths without the lovely images like in the modular books. It also seems like the chapters are not in the same order as in the modular book- so do you have to search for the material you need in the books?
Also don't you think it's rather strange that complex numbers is in the core and further pure maths books?

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Well, yes. However they are not exactly endorsed by Edexcel, so I suppose I'd need to ask my teachers whether they are good. Apparently, they also lack some content in the syllabus.

I've seen the B % C books on the internet (as a preview) and it seems as if it is purely maths without the lovely images like in the modular books. It also seems like the chapters are not in the same order as in the modular book- so do you have to search for the material you need in the books?
Also don't you think it's rather strange that complex numbers is in the core and further pure maths books?

The choice is yours: you can pay for pictures of fluffy clouds, flying cows, and ten lines of text per page OR you can pay for a couple of real maths books that are good value for money that you can use for reference years later (or sell on to future students).

I think that you're being overly harsh. I have a couple of the OCR textbooks, and I think that they're not too bad, and have a better treatment of some topics than B&C.

Out of interest, where do you think B&C is weaker than the OCR books?

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Is there a newer version of the Fp1 edexcel modular book? Or is there just the 2008 one?

No idea, probably not.

Does anybody know when the newer one is coming out? (surely there must be one some time in the future)

I'd have to dig them out and look through properly, but ISTR that I preferred the OCR treatment of Newton-Raphson and related topics, some of the graph sketching stuff, and integral-series inequalities. B&C is also looking a little dated in terms of consistent usage of set theoretic notation, and standard set names ($\mathbb{R}, \mathbb{Q}$ etc).

Overall B&C is hard to beat though.

That's fair enough. I've never been attracted to 'numerical methods' enough to worry about whether one book is better than another for things like Trapezium rule, Simpson's rule, Newton Raphson or the like

And I have seen some good stuff in the old MEI books for integral/series estimation, you're right.

Notation can certainly be an issue - I had a quick flick back to the beginning of B&C after your post and noticed they were insisting on using lg as an abbreviation for the base-10 logarithm

Trivial differences like old notation are fine if the student cross references with the supplied notation in the spec. It is not a bad thing to realise that multiple types of notation are not uncommon. It is handy knowing them in case you encounter them. It is also handy knowing your exam boards preference. Calculus is awash with examples. Incidentally Teach Yourself Calculus was written in circa 1910 and is still outstanding.