I feel like there must be better mathematics books than those two if what you want is a taste of mathematics. What you get from Euclid is the idea of proofs from a set of axioms, but Euclid in the original is quite a painful way to get introduced to that. And I've never understood the obsession with Spivak. Of all the calculus and analysis books I read, it definitely wasn't up there as anything special.
Not sure what the best books are these days to give people a flavour of university style mathematics. I quite liked Introductory Algebra and Analysis by Geoff Smith when I was teaching first year mathematics years ago but I assume that was published 25 years ago so I imagine has been superseded.
Maybe one can be so happy about having made it through such a tough subject that it has to be a good book? I mean, do people normaly study from more than one text?!
> ...to give people a flavour of university style mathematics
I've just started The Foundations of Mathematics by Ian Stewart & David Tall.
So far it's really promising.
Not sure what the best books are these days to give people a flavour of university style mathematics. I quite liked Introductory Algebra and Analysis by Geoff Smith when I was teaching first year mathematics years ago but I assume that was published 25 years ago so I imagine has been superseded.