http://math.stanford.edu/~conrad/diffgeomPage/handouts.html Differential Geometry of Curves and Surfaces http://www.amazon.com/DifferentialGeometry-Curves-Surfaces-Manfredo/dp/0132125897/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1 356608808&sr=1-1&keywords=docarmo Differential Geometry for Physicists http://www.amazon.com/Differential-Geometry-Curves-Surfaces-Manfredo/dp/01321258 97/ref=sr_1_1?

s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356608808&sr=1-1&keywords=docarmo Modern Geometry - Methods and Applications: Part I: The Geometry of Surfaces, Tr ansformation Groups, and Fields (Graduate Texts in Mathematics) (Pt. 1) Modern Geometry - Methods and Applications: Part II: The Geometry and Topology o f Manifolds (Graduate Texts in Mathematics) (Part 2) Modern Geometry - Methods a nd Applications: Part III: Introduction to Homology Theory (Graduate Texts in Ma thematics) For the "basic" material I like the book "Introduction to Smooth Manifolds" by J ohn Lee very much. It's very friendly and very accessible and nicely explains th e ideas. Spivak's "Comprehensive Introduction to Differential Geometry" is also very nice, especially the newer version with non-ugly typesetting. Warner's book "Foundations of Differentiable Manifolds and Lie Groups" is a bit more advanced and is quite dense compared to Lee and Spivak, but it is also worth looking at, after you become more comfortable with the basic material. To Kevin's excellent list I would add Guillemin and Pollack's very readable, ver y friendly introduction that still gets to the essential matters. Read "Malcolm' s" review of it in Amazon, I agree with it completely. Milnor's "Topology from the Differentiable Viewpoint" takes off in a slightly di fferent direction BUT it's short, it's fantastic and it's Milnor (it was also th e first book I ever purchased on Amazon!) First, follow the advice that a former Harvard tudents. He would point to a book or paper and in here but don't read it!". My interpretation the statements of the definitions and theorems urself. Peek at the book only as needed. math professor used to give his s say, "You should know everything of this is to look first at only and try to work out the proofs yo

Second, follow the advice of another former Harvard professor and develop your o wn notation. Why? Because it appears that each differential geometer and therefo re each differential geometry book uses its own notation different from everybod y else's. So you'll go nuts, unless you have your own notation and you translate whatever you're reading into your own notation. Of course, this is a natural th ing to do, while you're trying to work out your own proof anyway. Spivack is for me way too verbose and makes easy things look too complicated and difficult. I love Guillemin and Pollack, but it is just a rewrite for undergraduates of Mil nor's "Topology from a Differentiable Viewpoint". And it's really about differential topology (that is the title after all) and not differential geometry. For a really fast exposition of Riemannian geometry, there's a chapter in Milnor 's "Morse Theory" that is a classic. The rest of the book is great, of course. Another classic that ties in well with Lie groups is Cheeger and Ebin's "Compari son Theorems in Riemannian Geometry".

I'm recommending only older books, because I haven't kept up with all the newer books out there. One that I also really like is "Riemannian Geometry" by Gallot, Hulin, Lafontaine. And, back in the day, many of us also learned a lot by reading Thurston's notes on 3-manifolds. For a more analysis-oriented book, check out Aubin's "Some Nonlinear Problems in Riemannian Geometry". He has a book on Riemannian geometry, but I don't know it very well. One piece of advice: Avoid using local co-ordinates and especially those damn Ch ristoffel symbols. They have no geometric meaning and just get in the way. It is possible to do almost everything without them. The books I've recommended, exce pt possibly Aubin, aim for this.