[.ca] A First Course in General Relativity (ISBN 0521277035)

A very good introductory book:
This was the first book i read as an introduction to general relativity.The physical insights are truly great and the mathematics are presented in an easy to follow way needing only very few requirements. Im writing this rewiew nevertheless to explain why i rate it with 4 stars rather than five.The preblem i believe this book has is with the philosophy that tensor calculus is analyzed. The author begins with proving tensor calculus equation in a way that is valid ONLY for special relativity,then proceeds with the analysis of tensor calculus for the 2-d eucledian space,and again the equations are valid ONLY for the given space. In the end the author generalises the tensor equations for any spacetime using the Equivalence Principle,and not a solid mathematical proof,whitch Ifound confusing. As a result i give the book 4 stars because of the lack of a truly solid mathematical analysis of the manifold thery.Nevertheless its a great book for a beginner.

Well written and clear:
I used this text as an undergraduate, and found it to possess and nice combination of clarity, readability, and rigor: qualities not always combined in a single text. The text does not cover applications with as much attention, I presume the author expects the text to be followed by a more complete one. A term paper forced me to use, among other texts, Wald's, which I also found to be clear, and seemingly more comprehensive (I only read a few sections from Wald, though).

Solid start but you'll need Ohanian/wald:
This a very readable book that covers a lot of topics nicely. It gives a solid introduction to many of the main topics in the field. The only complaint I have is that it doesn't cover enough material. My advice if you want a complete understanding of the field is to buy this and the Ohanian text (which is very thorough, pleasantly readable and does covering just about everything you need). Read them side by side and once that is done move on to Wald. Don't bother with MTW, its is a tome of scattered bits and pieces that work as a reference but it is NOT something from which you want to learn the subject.

Good, good, good for passing exams!:
This is an introductory book for GR. I read this book two years ago for preparing an exam about GR, while I did never learn anything related to GR before but I passed the exam very well after reading this book. This book doesn't describe GR with the most modern math languages, but who cares if you just wanna learn the ideas of GR, actually this makes the understanding easier. No more preliminary knowledge than college physics is needed for reading this book, even the simple differental geometry has been self-contained very well in this small book. I consider this book a model for all good physics books.

Eh!:
Normally I am fascinated with physics, at least in elementary form since the heavy stuff is way over my head. But in this book my fascination fell asleep. What can say but EH!