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One of the things I'm looking into doing is beginning a Dover-like publishing company for putting out-of-print textbooks back into print in nice, cheap editions for students. So I'd like to ask the mathematicians here who are aware of such books:

What books that are out of print would you like to see republished in such editions—books for which you think it's a tragedy that they are out of print?

I think it's a good question for professional mathematicians and would form the basis for the beginnings of my book line. No limit on how many you'd like to suggest.

I have a ton of such books, but I'll kick it off with the two books I think it's tragic are out of print:

Functional Analysis, 2nd. ed. by L.V.Kantorovich and G.P. Akilov.

Notes On Differential Geometry by Noel J.Hicks. (Yes, I know there's a PDF of it floating around online, but a lot of us would like an actual physical book.)

cardinal
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Mathemagician1234
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    Related: http://mathoverflow.net/questions/18271/what-out-of-print-books-would-you-like-to-see-re-printed – Dylan Moreland Jan 21 '12 at 19:22
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    There is currently one vote to close the question as not constructive. Whoever voted to close, could you please explain yourself? (Is the vote a surrogate for closing as a duplicate of the MO question?) – Srivatsan Jan 21 '12 at 20:07
  • I don't think this is a duplicate of the MO thread since most of the books referred to there are not really textbooks,but research monographs,as is consistent with the scholastic level of MO.Here,my question is more general and more geared toward textbooks for students,both undergraduate and graduate.I believe this is a very constructive question as many of these books are available cheaply and the ones that are more costly would be good candidates for reissue. That's what I'm hoping to glean from this question. – Mathemagician1234 Jan 21 '12 at 23:41
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    Before you throw a lot of time/money into this project, I highly recommend doing two things. First, educate yourself about copyright law and make some sample inquiries into obtaining the rights for some of the books that interest you. I think you'll find that publishing companies will not be forthcoming with such rights unless you are willing to part with money (more money than you might expect). And for books which are in print but expensive, they will simply say no. – Adam Smith Jan 22 '12 at 03:08
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    Second, go and investigate how many copies of a math book are typically sold. The numbers are much smaller than you might expect, especially if you are just reprinting books and thus libraries will not acquire them. And to sell even those numbers, you will have to do quite a bit of advertising. You should price this -- it is very hard to do yourself without contacts or experience. In the end, after paying acquisition costs, printing costs, royalties to authors, and advertising costs, you will have serious problems recouping your investment. – Adam Smith Jan 22 '12 at 03:13
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    @Adam Thank you for the advice.I doubted this would be cheap in any event-doing something constructive with a dream in America almost never is.I'm nowhere near that stage yet-first I'm trying to gauge demand,hoping that will make it more likely to be a successful venture. – Mathemagician1234 Jan 22 '12 at 04:51
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    This is off-topic here. My vote to close would be final, so I won't cast it though. – Mariano Suárez-Álvarez Jan 22 '12 at 05:06
  • Thank you,Mariano. I just want to see what the posters think are the books that should be in print that aren't. – Mathemagician1234 Jan 22 '12 at 05:39
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    I agree with Mariano that this is off-topic and should be closed. However, I want to point out that you misread my comments. I wasn't saying that it would be expensive to start such a business. I was saying that it would be very unlikely to succeed. There just isn't much money in post-calculus math book publishing. And Dover already exists and does a great job (however, most of their money comes from publishing "classic" works of literature which are in the public domain, like Shakespeare). Do you really think the market is big enough for 2 companies doing basically the same thing? – Adam Smith Jan 22 '12 at 16:03
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    @Adam Never know unless you try. – Mathemagician1234 Jan 22 '12 at 19:17
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    I work in retailing, though not in books. I agree with Adam Smith's comments about this business being unlikely to succeed. If people go to your website when you are starting out with just a few titles they will say that you don't have anything. I don't care what math books you have in your list, that is what they will say. Once people decide you do not have anything they might want they won't come back-ever. If this is your hobby and, within reason, you don't care how much money you lose it is a different matter. – Jay Feb 24 '12 at 01:16
  • @Jay What you're basically saying is that any small inventory buisness is doomed to fail-that only large-scale operations can succeed in today's market. If that's true,then only the very wealthy can begin businesses because only they can create large inventory businesses. If that's true,then most people are idiots to even try to begin one. I find that hard to believe-especially in a gigantic market like textbooks where many publishers,both large and small,prosper. – Mathemagician1234 Apr 01 '12 at 08:07
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    @mathemagician1234 Small business can succeed. They have to be very good at something, say location, service, product selection, or price or they have to identify a niche that is poorly served. One such idea might be to turn out of print textbooks into e-books. This might require creating links. For example when the author says, "Recalling theorem 1.23 we see that..." create a link to the theorem. But I think a small business will have to create additional value through something like this. If someone just prints old books on paper its going to be hard to succeed. – Jay Apr 20 '12 at 12:10
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    @Jay Good advice-I'll look into it when I get closer to actually beginning the process of a business plan. I DO like e-books,but I still prefer the old fashioned,more permanent books.My chief idea was to create a "green" company that produces cheap Dover-like paperbacks completely out of recycled paper. I suspect such an endeveour would receive quite a bit of support in the green community. – Mathemagician1234 Apr 22 '12 at 19:06
  • Awesome idea! How are your business plans making progress? – Rudy the Reindeer May 26 '13 at 11:03

4 Answers4

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Theory of Numbers: A Text and Source Book of Problems, Andrew Adler, John E. Coury.

I love this book, but unfortunately it is out of print!

Álvaro Lozano-Robledo
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Basic Techniques of Combinatorial Theory by Daniel I.A. Cohen. This books offers a clear exposition on basic undergraduate topics in combinatorics, contains multiple proofs of many theorems and has some of the best exercises I have encountered. It was a real pleasure to learn from.

Holdsworth88
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3

The Complex Analytic Theory of Teichmüller Spaces, by Subhashis Nag.

I know many people who have been looking for this great book.

azimut
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yaa09d
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2

Jon Barwise, Handbook of Mathematical Logic

W.A.J. Luxemburg, Lecture Notes on Nonstandard Analysis

W.A.J. Luxemburg, Introduction to Nonstandard Analysis

Rudy the Reindeer
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