I thought I was getting some in-depth insight into calculus, technical insight I missed in my college course. I did get that, but got a lot of back-story re: the history of the development of calculus, which was usually pretty interesting, and also lyrical, allegorical musings on the nature of functions, limits, and calculus itself, which I had to be in the mood for and frequently was not. This was my fault, the author writes very well, and has clearly thought very deeply about his subject, but I was looking for more math and less philosophy.

I thought some of the proofs could have been more clear (for example, on page 215, why is f(a) a constant?), but in general I could follow along well enough not to lose the thread. ( )

This is book that started of interesting, between the calculus theories, and the stories told, but than the book started going into complicated math theories, that made my brain recoil in an attempt to understand, I gave up.

Incontestablement, nous avons là un livre d'un nouveau type, qui démontre que l'on peut réconcilier deux littératures for distincts: "la scientifique", avec son ascèses, sa priorité au contenu, ses exigences de rigueur, que sais-je, tout ce qui d'habitude en dégoûte les lecteurs; et la "grande", celle où un auteur-créateur met en scène des personnages, raconte une histoire, fait penser, rêver, réagir, rire...

The sheer poetry of his discussion of the mathematics of calculus makes this book a joy to read. Whether you love math or are just exploring the topic for the first time this is a book you should consider. ( )

Like the 4 other reviewers here have said: too wordy. There is poetry in calculus, but not this much. Still, there are little gems scattered around making it sort of worthwhile. But this is no "Journey Through Genius." ( )