032157057X / 9780321570574 University Calculus: Elements plus MyMathLab Student Starter Kit Package consists of: 0321431308 / 9780321431301 MyMathLab/MyStatLab -- Glue-in Access Card 0321533488 / 9780321533487 University Calculus: Elements with Early Transcendentals0321654064 / 9780321654069 MyMathLab Inside Star Sticker
I haven't taken a look at other calculus textbooks but I liked this one. It was clear enough that if I didn't understand something during the lecture, I could look it up in the book and I didn't have to strain my brain too hard to understand it. Everything is neatly organized, there are a lot of pictures to help you visualize, but not too many. I had to read a certain physics textbook recently and I was constantly trying to figure out what was going on in the pictures, or if the picture was even relevant to the topic I was currently on. This is not that book, the pictures are not excessive or confusing.
The only problem I had with the book was that after the 8th chapter (where calculus 3 at my school starts) the order gets a little weird. Reading in order will probably work fine but my professor chose to teach completely out of order - we went through the first few sections of each chapter first, to get all the basics done at once, and then we went into more complicated things, out of order again. I'm not quite sure what order we went in, but it made sense to me, and looking at how I would have learned things if I had gone in order, I'm glad I did it that way.