Microeconomic Theory: Basic Principles and Extensions Workbook

Rating:
Summary: The best!
Review: At the first glance, this book is elegantly laidout, but mathematically "inadequate". However when you really read it, you find the author is a master in explaining very complicated concepts in an easy way. I am a PhD student, but I learned "economics" from this book. The textbook by Mas-Colell that our professor chose was a disaster. That book was heavy, stinky, and the authors did a bad job in explaining even the simplest ideas. I decided to use the Nicholson's book and understand everything and (only) this book made me love microeconomics.

Lots of economists like to show off their math skills and like to show what a "rocket science" their field (economics) is by applying weird notations and "bad" English. Therefore, they intentionally make simple (maybe sometimes profound) ideas appear as complicate as they can be. Once you waste 1 day's time and undertsand the idea, you yell to yourself, "what a simple thing!". My experience is, spending 3 day's on Mas-Collel's book, I understand a thing, but it only requires 30 minutes if you use Nicholson's book.

I was a physicist before persuing economics. In physics, we regard a good scholar (or someone who really understands what he is talking about) as someone who can explain difficult stuff in easy ways. Otherwise we dont think too much of him/her. In this sense, Nicholson (maybe Varian too) is truly a scientist, a great scholarly master. I am using these great terms because I am very grateful to the author since I truly learned stuff from it and it saved me from the great disappointment in microeconomics inflicted by Mas-Collel's book.

Rating:
Summary: an excellent intermediate book
Review: This is a very good book for someone that wants a thorough understanding of intermediate level micro. It presents economics at a level in between Hal Varian's Intermediate Micro, and the far more advanced book by Mas-Colell. It gives a clear introduction to economics using calculus and, unlike other books, Nicholson covers second derivate conditions. This provides additional inights that help understand the more technical Mas-Colell.
Also, the type set and fonts are eye-friendly, and Nicholson is a master at explaning economics in a way that helps you learn it. I recommend this book for the serious student who wants to get ready for graduate level microeconomics courses. By serious, I do not mean only students that are majoring in economics, but also any other student who really wants to learn microeconomics.

Rating:
Summary: Best Intermediate Book on the Market
Review: This is the book you should purchase to learn classical intermediate economics if you plan to go to graduate school in economics. You will need calculus, but if you want to learn 'real' microeconomics, calculus is indispensable. Competing texts are too mathematically infantile to be of much use. This text is very worthwhile for self-study because solutions are given to half of the end-of-the-chapter problems.

A relatively mathematically sophisticated student should be able to go through the book on their own. After you've done this, you will be well on your way to possessing the 'intuition' as well as the 'basic' mathematical underpinnings needed at the graduate level.

As others have mentioned, the book is relatively light on game theory. Other texts will be necessary (Binmore, etc.) for learning this topic at the advanced undergraduate level.