Best LaTeX Templates for books and lecture notes

I use the memoir class for my lecture notes. Take a look at a painless template for the memoir class.

You can see some of my lectures notes in algebra.


I am answering this question nearly 5 years after it was posted because a Google search brought me here as I am preparing some notes for a mathematical lecture course - and I wanted to add a couple of suggestions.

For most lecture courses I use revtex of the APS and produce notes with two columns on A4 paper a bit like APS journals e.g. Phys. Rev. Lett. (ok they use Letter paper size, but revtex works nicely for A4 and Letter). I have been happy with the quality and general ease of using revtex, but there have been a couple of small things that mean for the maths notes I am looking elsewhere. One example is putting boxes around things such as equations, which may be possible, but I have not been able to figure out in revtex - so it may not be possible - or at least does not seem to be easy.

I have not done this yet, but my plan is to use amslatex - amslatex is provided by the American Mathematical Society for journals and books with lots of maths, so it seems a natural choice...