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Book on discrete mathematics for self study

By Emma Martinez
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I am searching for book on discrete mathematics which is suitable for self study. This mean I want it to have exercises with answers (It would be ideal if it had solutions). I have already read "Discrete Mathematics" of Kenneth Ross. I have also partially read "Concrete Mathematics" of Knuth but I didn't like the style much. I am searching for next book to read. I do not have any requirements on topics I just want it to cover few of them like combinatorics and counting, recurrences and probably generating functions.

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4 Answers

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Epp's text on Discrete Mathematics is a very nice read. Johnsonbaugh is good as well, but is more technical and more geared towards computer scientists.

Nicholas Loehr's text Bijective Combinatorics is a great read for the topics you listed, which fall in the realm of combinatorics. Loehr's text is rigorous and thorough, but it is also very well written and intuitive. I did my undergraduate work at Virginia Tech where he teaches, and he has a reputation for being both brilliant and a fantastic instructor. His book lives up to that reputation, in my opinion.

Make sure you avoid Alan Tucker's Applied Combinatorics textbook. It's a horribly written book, and the only redeeming quality are the exercises.

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"generatingfunctionology" by Herbert S. Wilf and "A=B" by Marko Petkovsek, Herbert Wilf and Doron Zeilberger.

These are available as free downloads at and

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I'm taking a Discrete Mathematics course right now, using Applied combinatorics by Roberts and Tesman. It does have some good 'real life' examples and applications.

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Here are very complete notes and problem sets from Jacob Lurie's (Harvard) combinatorics course (Harvard).

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