I have only been back into math for the last year after taking a 5 year break. Long story short, I had to build up from prealgebra (PEMDAS!) and now I am halfway through a brutal semester of calc. I purchased a few other calc help books but they are either too watered down or overly wordy. This book strikes a very nice balance that text books don't achieve any more. Plenty of pictures, down to earth talk, very detailed explanations, and it even shows you how to derive the equations and the thought process. Used with wolfram alpha, these are a very good combination of tools<br><br>Edit: 1 Feb 2013<br><br>I am now in Calculus for Engineers which is considered to be a combination of Calc 2 and 3 in one semester (with a little bit cut out). I am still using this book in conjunction with my schools textbook and I often find myself referring back to this one when learning a new concept. I prefer to use the school textbook for problems to work through as they will most likely be similar to the one on the schools exams. I am averaging a 95% in the course so far and considering I had to build from the basics, I think I am on to something. If you are serious about learning Calc, this book is only $20 and college text books range $100-200 easy.