Maths in real life - suggestions?

Hey all,

So I'm a mature student in my 20s and have returned to study after a good 10 years out of education. (I always loved maths in high school but unfortunately wasn't there much due to health reasons).

Right now, I'm doing my a-levels via distance learning (maths OCR MEI w/ statistics a-level being one of them) and I really enjoy it, I love problem solving, but the caveat is that I don't truly grasp where a lot of it is implemented in real life!

Sure, I see where some of it plays in to real life but I feel that the books/materials don't do a sufficient job in actually explaining what it is used for in the real world. It feels like it is a matter of "Ok, do this, then this and you should get this answer".

Does anybody know of any good books, websites, etc, that may help explain this so it becomes more intuitive to me in the future? I found a good site called betterexplained but need something that would cover all areas of a-level if possible.

Thanks in advance guys.

Are you planning to study maths at university or just up to A levels? As A levels are the gateway to university courses, the textbooks are designed only to allow readers pass the exam.
Calculus by Spivak is both mathematically rigorous and applied.
One-variable calculus with an introduction to linear algebra (Vol.1) by Apostol does the exact same purpose but is slightly easier.
People might recommend Calculus by Stewart or Thomas or Larson. Though popular and bulky, I find them dry which just say do this, do that and you will get the answer.
You can find free pdf version to all above textbooks.

Statistics by Freedman, Pisani and Purves is the best statistics textbook for intuitional statistics study but I can't seem to find the free version online. (Assuming you don't use libgen )
Here is a free Statistics textbook: http://onlinestatbook.com/

@tangotangopapa2 Ooh nice list is nice.
@ladolcevita8 Found a Spivak 3rd Edition pdf. Also Apostol (another v here)