When Teschl (mathematics, U. of Vienna, Austria) was charged with teaching the basic course of ordinary differential equations, none of the many textbooks quite served his purpose. He wanted a concise but rigorous introduction with full proofs that also covered classical topics such as Sturm-Liouville boundary value problems, differential equations in the complex domain, and modern aspects of the qualitative theory of differential equations. He wrote his own notes, and posted them on his web site where, over the past decade, he, his students, colleagues, and others have commented, suggested revisions, and pointed out errors and obscurities. When other websites began referring to the notes, he decided it was time to get them in print. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)