(Math professor here)<p>What do you mean by "foundational"?<p>I love <i>Calculus Made Easy</i>, but in my opinion the reason it's so good is that it doesn't try to be foundational. It relies on quick and dirty tricks -- especially, treating dy/dx as a fraction when it can't be formally defined as such, but where doing so makes the subject much more intuitive and easy. It's not really a good foundation for further study, you need something that doesn't cut corners for that, but it's fantastic for what it is!<p>My favorite foundational book is <i>Linear Algebra</i> by Jim Hefferon:<p><a href="https://hefferon.net/linearalgebra/" rel="nofollow">https://hefferon.net/linearalgebra/</a><p>It is free, and I've seen the author on HN occasionally. It's foundational in the sense that it builds up the subject brick by brick, assuming the minimum realistic prerequisites needed, and it does an outstanding job of this.<p>But it's a slow read, essentially by design. If you want something quicker, you might try Interactive Linear Algebra by Margalit and Rabinoff:<p><a href="https://textbooks.math.gatech.edu/ila/" rel="nofollow">https://textbooks.math.gatech.edu/ila/</a><p>Again free, with lots of widgets to play with.<p>Some other textbooks I really like:<p>Epp's Discrete Mathematics is fantastic. The newest edition is astronomically expensive, so go looking for used copies of previous editions.<p>Carter's Visual Group Theory is tremendous fun. Once again not foundational per se, but if you want to learn what group theory is all about without slogging through lots of formalities, that's a great choice. I'd say that roughly it's in the spirit of Calculus Made Easy.<p>Also, if you enjoy poker, check out Dan Harrington's books on the subject. In the course of explaining hold'em strategy, they will teach you lots about probability, counting, expected value, and game theory in an applied setting. They're fantastically written.