Essentials of Stochastic Processes

Rating:
Summary: This book has potential, but I want my money back.
Review: Durrett's writing style in this book is innovative and casual. In each topic he develops the theory quickly, sometimes by delaying proofs until the end of the section. This allows him to quickly introduce examples (and there are many of them). For many results, he gives an intuitive explanation for why the result is true before proceeding with the proof.

However, the enormous amount of typos in this book are inacceptable. Springer should be ashamed for letting the book out the door in this condition. Durrett provides a reason for why the book might be filled with typos, but this is insufficient; the book should not have been released.

Also, a downside of his presentation style and ordering is that it is harder to trace the logic of the "grand scheme". In other words, it is hard to tell what results are needed to prove which theorems.

I haven't tried the majority of the exercises, but many of the ones I tried (some of which were assigned as homework) were routine and required little thought. A superficial glance at the other ones reveals that they all appear similar in nature, i.e. not that much variety.

I applaud Durrett for his lively, even engaging, writing style, but the bottom line is, this book needs work. I would not recommend it in this condition.

Rating:
Summary: reasonable competition for Taylor & Karlin
Review: Lots of typos.... The blurb on the Springer site is misleading: "this book presents recent results previously available only in specialized monographs." I have not seen anything in this book that is not in Taylor and Karlin or Lawlor's books. It's not bad mind you, just not as "leading edge" as the blurb says. If you're looking for that, try Bremaud's new "Markov Chains"

Rating:
Summary: Typos
Review: Rick Durrett has a very nice and intuitive approach, but unfortunately this book is full of typos.