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Rating: 
Summary: Worst Math Book I've ever had to use
Review: As a math major here at the University of Michigan I must say that this is the worst Math book I have ever had to use in a class. The book is full of archaic proofs and lots of general solutions, but no practical examples on how these solutions could be used. This book is basically just a big group of equaions, without any explanation as to how or why you would want to use any of them. Theres lots of numerical analysis books out there, you could do better than buying this potential paper-weight.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Math Book I've ever had to use
Review: As a math major here at the University of Michigan I must say that this is the worst Math book I have ever had to use in a class. The book is full of archaic proofs and lots of general solutions, but no practical examples on how these solutions could be used. This book is basically just a big group of equations, without any explanation as to how or why you would want to use any of them. Theres lots of numerical analysis books out there, you could do better than buying this potential paper-weight.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Book - not for everyone.
Review: One of the best numerical analysis books I ever came across. This describes the theory behind numerical analysis, so if you expect to find a lot of numerical examples and written algorithms, this is NOT the book you're looking for.
Though there are some examples and algorithm, this is a math book, not a computer science oriented book. So buy this book if you are interested in the mathematical theory and ideas behind numerical analysis. Algorithms come and go, but the theory is always the same.
In my work as a computational physicist I use this book extensively and find it invaluable.
It takes some time to get used to, but little effort in understanding math never killed anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: thorough, but thoroughly unreadable
Review: This is a standard textbook by a leading authority. There is little hand-waiving here. However, this is hardly a book to learn by. The typesetting could have been a bit better. I wish the proofs had been set off from the examples and the text a little more. There is also too much referencing to earlier equations. Rather than referring me over and over to equatin (6.2.1), just re-write the equation. Also, this book is starting to show its age. It is now 11 years old, so its bibliography is a bit outdated, as are references to computer programs. My most severe criticism of this book is that it is sorely lacking in explanations. There is little intuition provided here. Definately not an undergrad book. A much better text to learn from--but not as useful as a reference as this book is--is Burden and Faires. B&F make lots of use of pseudo-code and I applaud them for it. It helps detangle some of the math.
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