Comment by tw1010

The real niche that needs to be filled here is not more textbooks, it is a really really good description of how to actually teach yourself this stuff on your own. There are so many ways to get this wrong. It's insanely easy to trick yourself into thinking you understand these things without actually doing so. I've read some of the stuff Thurston and Grothendieck and people on HN have written about this, but it still doesn't feel enough. Just doing exersizes is not enough when you get to the graduate level, at that point introspection and the inner mental game becomes much more significant. And without the collaborative help from a greater wiser community everyone is left to discover this stuff on their own, which means a lot of people are going to fail when other interests take priority.