Elements of Programming Interviews

EPP is a great intro for those without the preexisting math. Almost nothing is taken for granted, even high school math.

I recommend to start with "Elements of Programming Interviews (in Java or Python)". It serves as a nice practical overview of the main algorithms and data structures and when to use them. Personally I found it more complete than the usually recommended "Cracking the Coding Interview" while being equally approachable.

No. The authors are purposely obscure and arrogant. There are much better books to learn algorithms from. Even Elements of Programming Interviews is better. It is worth coming back to if you want to read proofs to understand things in depth. But it is terrible as a fundamental instructive text.