I just finshed taking Math @ the University of Maryland and would like to continue learning. Are there any good books, I'm not speaking of textbooks but books. Thanks

why not textbooks?

The Unknowable (Springer Series in Discrete Mathematics & Theoretical Computer Science) by G. J. Chaitin is a good read.

Textbooks are generally not as well written as actual books. They try to simply some material & do not cover others as well as they should, its a far larger audience.

Robert and Ellen Kaplan's The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero and The Art of the Infinite: The Pleasures of Mathematics. I met the authors a few weeks ago, and they (and their books) are absolutely amazing. I highly recommend both books.

3 things you must note

1) pure vs applied math

2) topic/field of math

3) extense of your knowledge in that field.

 

IF your looking for the beauty of math and cs

i sugeest

Gary Flake's the "computational beauty of nature"

and excellent friendly book about how math and computers

applies to nature. Discuses, NNs, GAs, CAs, Chaos, complexity,

fractals, computatbility, with excellent simulations

 

But when it comes down to it a textbook is the only way to go

to understand theory/equations and to provide examples

 

if your looking for more discriptive stuff perhaps pick up a physics book,

Yeah what kinds of books are you interested in, like history, problems, etc