This textbook is designed to familiarise the reader with various introductory topics in the field of combinatorics, and is ideal for an undergraduate. One of the major attractions of this textbook is the writing style – it is designed to be very readable, as though the author were having a conversation with the reader. The result is a text which feels engaging – a quality which is sure to be of great benefit to undergraduate students.
The book covers many areas of combinatorics, including Ramsey theory, Stirling numbers, and integer partitions. It has wide enough range to cover the expected topics of any introductory combinatorics course, and could itself be used as a basis for such a course. Another positive aspect of the book is the abundance of exercises, together with a selection of hints, short answers, and complete solutions. The exercises themselves are often written in an investigative manner, which is certainly part of the book’s aim to have a problem-solving emphasis. This gives the reader practice not only of solving combinatorial problems, but with finding conjectures and truly understanding the ideas behind certain mathematical objects. The text of the book is also rich with historical notes, giving the reader context for certain definitions, theorems, and problems.